


We'd Be the Cavalry

by BlackAquoKat



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Leverage Fusion, And Rufus is also the best future BF ever, Arabic food, Arabic swearing, Borderline Morally Ambiguous!Lucy Preston, F/M, Garcia Flynn & Jiya Friendship, Garcia Flynn is a supportive rival/future boyfriend, Garcia Flynn is the Melodramatic Trash Tree we all love, Jiya is ready to punch Wyatt at all times in the beginning, Mutual Pining, Neurodivergent!Jiya, Rufus is a dedicated pile of nerves and we adore him, Star Wars quotes in excess, Timeless Season 3 Project, Wyatt Logan's Bisexuality Crisis, along with multiple other pop culture references because that's how Rufus Carlin communicates, also, because all the same character beats and themes are there, expect lots of Flogan banter, i mean lots of it, not-so-background Riya, slow burn found family, slowburn, so much mutual pining, tags will be updated as story progresses, the author projects her experiences as a Lebanese woman onto Jiya, the crossover we all absolutely wanted, thnks for the tag Mads, worships the ground Lucy walks on
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2020-07-09 07:23:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 34,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19883818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackAquoKat/pseuds/BlackAquoKat
Summary: Lucy Preston isn't a thief. She's supposed to catch the bad guys and put them in prison. That's how her world is supposed to work.As it turns out, however, sometimes bad guys are the only good guys you get.(Or, the author desperately wanted a Leverage AU for Timeless and decided to take matters into her own hands.)





	1. The Santa Anna Job

**Author's Note:**

> The first job is mostly summarized. The rest will most likely be more in-depth. I would love a co-author/beta on this to help with the more original jobs/combining storylines from both shows.

Looking back, she should have realized that the damn job offer was an obvious set up from the start. 

Lucy had never been _less_ paranoid about a job offer: lead a group of thieves and steal some plans about a time machine (of all things) back from Mason Industries, the company who stole them from Michael Temple, the client, in the first place.

Lucy never takes things at face value, always looks for the hidden catch, because everything comes at a price, _everything._

But she has barely been sober for longer than a few hours since...last autumn? It’s easy to blame the alcohol even if she has no intention to stop drinking any time soon.

But she also let Temple dig into her soft spot.

Mason Industries is insured by Rittenhouse.

Rittenhouse. The family business. The insurance company she had given her career, her time, her entire goddamn _life,_ to.

And what did she get back for her loyalty and service?

_“Don’t you want revenge? Don’t you want to stick it to the bastards that let your sister die?”_

So she had taken the job, worked with the three thieves she never managed to catch when she still worked in insurance (and didn’t they _love_ reminding her of that, especially Wyatt, the smug son of a bitch) who got along like oil and water until she laid down the law and then…

Surprise upon surprise, they actually worked quite well together. 

Sure, World’s Best Hacker Rufus was a pile of nerves from start to finish (how a guy so constantly anxious managed to bring the Pentagon to its knees at the tender age of sixteen baffles Lucy to this day), Wyatt the oft self-righteous Hitter was as hot headed and painfully _Texan_ as she remembered, and the Greatest Thief No One Has Ever Seen was…well, the same Jiya who jumped off buildings without a care in the world and barely understood human interaction.

(Not entirely her fault, Lucy could admit. Life hadn’t been kind to Jiya, and her neurodivergence only made the world a more overwhelming, strange thing to survive in.)

But the job was supposed to be a one-time thing. In and out, payments made, revenge had, never see one another again.

Even if it was the most fun she’d had since...well, _ever._

“C’mon, Preston,” Jiya had teased, surprisingly good-natured for once, even if she still wasn’t great with eye contact and personal space boundaries. “Didn’t it feel pretty good being bad for once? The black queen instead of the white knight?”

“Didn’t take you for the metaphorical type, Jiya,” Wyatt then teased before taking off. If he didnt sense Jiya flipping him off as he left, then Lucy would eat her shoes.

Lucy had rolled her eyes at the time and left without answering. She then went back to her cheap hotel room (the only places she stayed at these days) and downed whatever bottles of hotel liquor she could get her hands on.

(She can admit it now: yes, it did feel pretty good to play the role of a thief this time around.)

(But she’s an art appraiser, a historian, an ex-insurance agent. She is most definitely NOT a thief.)

(She never was, and never will be.)

* * *

Then, at an ungodly hour of the afternoon (according to Lucy’s hangover), Temple calls in a rage. Something about the plans never getting to him, something about freezing payments, honestly Lucy isn’t sober enough to really focus, but the idea of not getting paid is enough to get her out of bed, into clothes, and over to the meeting place.

She should have gotten suspicious when she saw that the meeting place was a warehouse.

It’s not until she sees the rest of the team in the middle of the warehouse, arguing heatedly about what went wrong and whose fault it was, that she sobers up in the way that only people who realize they have been absolutely _had_ can sober up.

And here she is now. Standing stock still, still unseen by the others, as the pieces fall into place and she puts together what has happened.

Her sudden burst of hysterical laughter draws the attention of the others.

“What the hell are you laughing at?” Rufus demands, irate and about as intimidating as a stuffed animal. “Did _you_ steal the plans?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me.” Jiya has murder in her eyes. “She’s the only one I know who’s ever played both sides. Now my money’s not in my account and I’m not happy. At all.”

Rufus takes a wary step away from Jiya.

“Oh, c’mon!” Wyatt argues. He gestures to Lucy. “Playing both sides isn’t her style, she’s the most honest person I’ve ever known.”

Rufus blinks at him. “Was that a compliment or an insult?”

Lucy shakes her head (she also shoves aside puns popping into her mind about how exactly she plays for both sides because now is _certainly_ not the time). She approaches the group as her hands run frantically through her hair. 

“No, no, I didn’t steal the plans. Before you keep beating this dead argument with a stick, let me ask: would any of you come to a place like this to get paid?”

“What? Of course not!” Rufus gestures around him. “I know better than to walk into an abandoned warehouse. That’s a horror movie waiting to happen. Besides, global economy, you just transfer the funds, and that’s that.”

“We’re never supposed to see each other again,” Jiya agrees. “I did this for the payday.”

This just sets Lucy off into a another fit of laughter. “I mean, oh my God, wow, the only reason all of us are here in this place, at this time is because we’re angry about not getting paid. Right?”

“Uh...right?” Wyatt takes a step towards her. “Lucy, are you okay?”

“I’m fine!” She throws her hands up and drops them, all humor fading from her face. “I’m totally fine! It’s just that the only reason we were all summoned here in the first place is because we’re. _Not. Getting. Paid.”_

Lucy can’t even enjoy the slow horrific realization falling on their faces just before they all charge for the exit like their lives depend on it.

Which, Lucy thinks as the warehouse goes up in flames behind them and knocks all of them to the concrete in an unconscious heap, is exactly the case.

* * *

The smell of antiseptic and smoke wakes Lucy up with a start. She groans in pain when she jerks her wrist against something metallic.

Handcuffs. She’s been handcuffed to a hospital bed.

And not even in the fun way.

(She deliberately tries not to think of Carine. Or Josephine.)

“Welcome back.”

Lucy glares at Wyatt, who is handcuffed to the chair in the corner of the room. He stares back at her, obviously as pissed as she is. 

It was a trap. They were set up. She is so _stupid,_ she should have seen it coming, she’s slipping, she’s so _stupid_ \--

She shakes her head. Shuts her eyes. Empties all of her thoughts except for one. Just like Harry taught her before he got away.

_Escape._

“What’s our situation?” she asks.

“Took you long enough to join us,” Jiya calls through the vent from the next room. Lucy hears the tell tale sound of empty jingling handcuffs, which means that Jiya must have already escaped hers. “The cops came to investigate just as we were waking up.”

“We’ve already been processed,” Rufus reports. “And it’ll take them about thirty minutes to get all of our information, depending on how advanced their software is.”

Wyatt waves his blackened fingertips at Lucy, and looks down to see ink smudged on hers too. _Shit._

“How long ago?”

“Twenty minutes,” Wyatt answers. “And let me tell you, I’m not going back to an American prison over something like this. I’ll take these guys out if I have to.”

“Don’t you dare, Texas,” Jiya argues. “I’m trying to get out too, and if you kill any cops, that screws up my plan!”

“Hey, what about me?” Rufus chimes in. “I’m still handcuffed here and I’ve got family I’m trying to take care of, I can’t afford to go to prison.”

“Guys, enough!” Lucy orders. She sits up and presses her free hand to her forehead. “No one is going to prison. We’re going to escape _together_ , alright?”

“And why should we go with _your_ plan?” Rufus asks.

“Because I actually know what all three of you can do. I have the advantage here. It’s the best way to keep us _all_ out of jail.”

_It’s the only way I can make Temple pay for this._

“And what makes you think I’ll trust those two?” Wyatt demands.

“You don’t have to.” Lucy finally looks at him. “But do you trust me?”

A long silence passes. “Of course we do,” Wyatt answers. “You’re the honest one.” There is a strange undercurrent of respect hiding in the resentment of his tone.

Lucy lets out a sigh of relief. “Okay. First things first, we need a phone. Jiya?”

She can almost hear Jiya roll her eyes through the vent. “Fine. But for the record, I’m doing this under protest.”

Then she hears Jiya vomiting and Rufus’s disgusted exclamation and she can’t help but smile, just a little, in spite of the situation.

* * *

_That was way too close._

Lucy’s mind whirs, making and discarding plan after plan and stewing in anger over the embarrassment of this whole situation until they arrive at Rufus’s safehouse and get the whole story.

“Wait, so Mason Industries never stole the plans from Temple’s company?” Wyatt says. “He lied?”

Rufus waves his hand at the paused face of Anthony Bruhl, vice president of the company, on the computer screen. “I double-checked the copy of the plans I made, there’s evidence deep in the code that proves that they belonged to Mason Industries from the start.”

“So we weren’t stealing the plans _back_. We were just stealing them, period,” Jiya clarifies. 

Rufus shrugs. “Not to be That Guy, but I said at the start that this wasn’t Connor’s style, that he never would approve of something like this.”

“Well, sorry if I didn’t want to take the word of someone I barely know when I had a payday on the line!” Wyatt’s jaw ticks with anger. He was probably itching to hit something. “I don’t get it, why wouldn’t Temple just ask us to steal the plans? Why all the cloak and dagger?”

“Because you’re all thieves,” Lucy finally says. She can’t stop staring at the other article Rufus pulled up, detailing Temple’s upcoming events and past accomplishments with Temple Services. “You would have seen Temple as just another thief, you would have expected some kind of double-cross. In this case, you just saw a citizen at the end of his rope.”

“So why didn’t _you_ see this coming?” Jiya asks, suddenly right behind Lucy’s ear.

Lucy jumps only a little, because she’s gotten somewhat used to Jiya appearing and reappearing at will like a ghostly cat after all the time chasing after her. 

(Sometimes Lucy wonders if Jiya actually _is_ a ghost. No one ever seems to recall whether the woman ever enters or exits a room, she’s just all of a sudden _there_ when you least expect it.)

“I’m not a thief. I don’t think like that.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter much now.” Rufus grabs the papers he’d printed off sometime while they were all talking. “We need to get the hell out of here until the heat dies down. I’ve got tickets here to London, Rome, Paris, São Paulo, and the information should match the IDs you all gave me--”

Lucy’s ears jump at the mention of São Paulo, but she doesn’t take her eyes off of the picture of Temple. Another plan forms in her mind and her smile grows.

“Maybe hold off on running for a moment, you three. This doesn’t have to be over.”

“What?” She hears Rufus fiddle with the paperwork he’s holding. “Lucy, there’s no way we can get close to Temple, he knows our faces--”

“You don’t understand,” Lucy interrupts. “He’s _desperate_ . That was a _risky_ plan he just pulled, and he only did it because his entire career is tied to the stock price like an anvil. He’s got a shareholders meeting coming up and this is what he’ll have to show for it. We let him go now, he’ll get away with everything scot free.”

“Hold on,” Wyatt lifts up his hand. His fingers are still stained from the fingerprinting. “You’re telling us you want to con this guy? You? Miss Lucy ‘I Don’t Even Lie On My Taxes’ Preston?”

Lucy bites a few scathing retorts building in her throat. “How do you think I got stolen merchandise back? Look at Temple, he’s the perfect mark: overconfident, thinks he’s smart, greedy--”

“You know what? He _does_ think we’re dead,” Rufus muses. He starts to grin, just a little, at the possibilities before them. “We’d have the element of surprise...” He shrugs. “What the hell? I’m always down to stick it to rich white dudes.”

Wyatt folds his arms. “What’s in it for me?”

Lucy purses her lips. “Payback and a lot of money?”

He considers that, then nods. “Alright then.”

Lucy turns to Jiya, who inclines her head. “I was already planning to shrink wrap his entire office, and maybe clear out a safe of his or two, so sure, I’ll do this. Especially if there’s still money involved.”

“But _you,_ Lucy?” Rufus crosses his arms. “You’re the ‘good guy.’ What’s in this for you?”

Lucy’s takes in a deep breath. Lets it out. Stares at a spot beyond their heads, tries to ignore the frantic _beep beep beep_ of a heart monitor echoing in her head.

_“I’m sorry, Miss Preston. There’s nothing more we can do.”_

“He used my sister,” Lucy finally whispers.

The following silence falls with all the subtlety of a freight train. She wonders how much they know. She wonders if it should bother her that they know anything of the situation at all.

Lucy presses her lips together and takes in another breath. “Alright, let’s go get Flynn, shall we?”

“Wait, what?” she hears Wyatt protest as he follows her out of the room. “No, c’mon, not Flynn! Lucy, wait!”

Meanwhile, trailing behind, Jiya stage whispers to Rufus, “What the hell is a _‘Flynn’_?”

* * *

Rufus has never been an arrogant man, but he is fully aware that, by popular standards, he is considered a genius. 

He’s been a wizard with computers since he was eight. He didn’t necessarily intend to get involved in crime, but one can only get screwed over by a rigged government for so long before finally taking action.

It started with just hacking into the accounts of enough rich white folk to help his mom pay the bills, but then he ended up having so much fun along the way (in spite of his crippling anxiety the whole time) that he just...kept on.

Then the injustices kept piling up as he got older and he realized he could do more than just steal.

He could expose.

Then began his more... _vigilante_ act. Leaking information on how the government was taking advantage of the people, releasing police files exposing the racist structures of law enforcement, etc.

He didn’t realize how deep he’d gotten until he hacked into the Pentagon when he was sixteen and decided to lay low until he was older, so nothing would come back to haunt his mom and brother. Eventually he continued his hobbies during his time at MIT and afterward.

(He was found out his senior year of high school and instead of being given an ultimatum or a prison sentence, Rufus found himself with a mentor and someone who helped to nourish his talents and offered financial assistance for his attendance at MIT. But that’s a story for another time.)

Bottom line: when it comes to computers and numbers, there’s no one better. His skills in other subjects were above average at best, but he is almost always the smartest person in the room.

That being said, even if literature has never been a big passion of his, Rufus can tell when Shakespeare is being utterly _massacred_.

Rufus has no idea what they are doing in a rundown theatre in the middle of a _Hamlet_ rehearsal in downtown Chicago, but this poor bastard trying to perform a soliloquy onstage is so _painfully_ bad he’s worried his ears will bleed out.

“This guy is _awful,”_ Rufus finally says, after about ten minutes of torment. Beside him, Jiya (the most stunning woman he’s ever seen and also the most terrifyingly thief he will never flirt with because she would probably eat him alive) nods in agreement. “I mean, _that’s_ the guy you want to bring in?”

“No,” Lucy answers with a grin.

Just then, a thunderous voice roars from the audience seating and Rufus just about jumps out of his skin as the indictments reverberate off the walls. A man charges forward from the seats up to the stage.

“Johnson, are you OUT OF YOUR MIND!!! This is a DRESS REHEARSAL and you STILL haven’t memorized your lines?!! The performance is Thursday and if you think I don’t know that you’ve been drunk on whiskey for the past two weeks, then you don’t realize I can pull your understudy on in a heartbeat, I’ve heard better delivery from the high schoolers at the junior playhouse across town--!!”

Rufus has never heard such scathing anger in a theatre production of all places, and he absolutely does not envy the actor on stage...though if the guy is drinking on the job, Rufus doesn’t feel _that_ sympathetic.

“Is that guy going to shoot that other guy?” Jiya asks. She sounds excited by the idea.

“He’s always on edge during dress rehearsals,” Lucy comments fondly.

Rufus’s head jerks to look at Lucy, who looks oddly amused and unperturbed by the brutal dressing down taking place. “I’m sorry, _what_?”

Wyatt groans and pinches the bridge of his nose. “The director? _That’s_ Flynn.”

…oh.

Lucy’s smile grows into something blinding and beautiful and she starts walking further down the aisles, towards the stage that Flynn has climbed onto to further verbally castrate his trembling performer. 

Oh _hell_ no.

* * *

Garcia Flynn, grifter extraordinaire, is even taller than Lucy remembers. And that’s saying something.

He's on the stage right now, angrily trying to salvage something from his Hamlet’s god-awful performance, and the image is so hilarious she can’t stop smiling.

She starts slow-clapping and the action startles Flynn out of his tirade.

She knows the moment he sees her when his jaw nearly goes slack with shock and his eyes pop wide open, the blinding stage lights reflecting off of his glasses.

There’s a long moment where they just stare at each other. Footsteps thud behind her, the team catching up.

Flynn appears to be biting back a smile. He looks back to the actor, who flinches away violently. Then he calls out to the rest of the cast and crew behind the stage, to the stage and assistant directors also sitting in the audience. “Let’s take a lunch break.”

The Hamlet actor tore off the stage like a bottle rocket and from the sound of it, everyone else involved in the production runs off in terror too.

It’s hilarious, really. Seeing how much the world fears someone like Flynn, whereas Lucy has never been afraid of him.

Even if the second time they ever saw each other involved the burning wreckage of a blimp. To be fair, that hadn’t been either of their faults, but it was still not an ideal second meeting.

(The only thief she ever chased who crawled under her skin and never really left. The only person she ever let escape...though she will deny doing so on purpose on pain of death.)

“Not too shabby,” she finally says, loud enough to carry across to him. “The glasses are a nice touch.”

Flynn chuckles and steps off the stage, then moves right up to her. 

(Yep, just as tall as she remembers.)

“My favorite critic,” Flynn greets. He’s smiling, but it’s tentative. Wary. 

Even if he is undoubtedly excited to see her (and doesn’t _that_ realization make her stomach flutter), their relationship has always been very cat and mouse. Well, maybe more like two cats constantly circling one another and pawing impatiently at the space in between.

“And to what do I owe this visit?” He glances up and sees everyone behind her. “Wyatt Logan, always a pleasure.”

“Go to hell, Flynn.”

“Creative as ever.” That pulls more of a brittle expression from Flynn. “Are you here to arrest me, Lucy? I haven’t done anything _illegal_ that you can prove.”

Lucy bites her lip mischievously. “ _I_ have.”

That statement smacks Flynn in the face and leaves him slack-jawed once again.

“What, you’re playing the other side now? _My_ side?” He seems to be waiting for her to jump back and yell, “Psych!” 

She just waits for the rest of his reaction.

After all, he’s always said her talents were wasted with the likes of a company like Rittenhouse.

(She should have listened to him sooner about _that_ at least. But that way lies madness, and she’s in no state to deal with that particular brand of it. She's already itching for another bottle of vodka.)

Flynn blinks down at her, bewildered. He looks behind her at the team again, looking for confirmation that she isn’t pulling his leg, isn’t about to have an entire herd of cops rush in to arrest him (which...very nearly happened once before in his defense, though that hadn’t been her fault either). 

Then his face breaks out into an expression simultaneously smug and utterly delighted (and breathtaking).

“Didn’t I say, Lucy?” He shakes his head in disbelief. “I said we’d be quite the team one day. Didn’t I?”

She’d laughed at him at the time, when he’d said that. Because she’d been happy in her position, with her family, with her accomplishments, and the idea of changing that on a whim for a man who set off sparks in her chest seemed ridiculous at the time (if still tempting on her weaker days).

But this time...those words have a lot more weight, knowing what she knows now, about herself and about Flynn, about their relationship. That weight is almost too much.

So much is different now.

She’s different, she’s virtually unrecognizable from the woman he’s come to know...

_Is this a bad idea?_

She coughs and hides her gaze. Takes a moment to recollect herself before looking back up (and up and up, damn tall people) at him. 

Too late to change her mind now.

“Does that mean you’re in?” she eventually says.

That smugness is still there, because he’s an ass who takes pleasure in being right, but she can see tenderness too, in the way he nods. Acknowledging the significance of this offer. It's almost like he’s bowing to her. 

“I wouldn’t miss this for anything.”

Despite herself, Lucy grins again. She turns to her still-concerned compatriots and claps her hands together.

“Who’s ready to break the law, just one more time?”

* * *

The first meeting with all five of them together goes far better than Lucy would have expected.

Rufus’s research and presentation of Michael Temple and his position as Temple Services CEO is highly professional and very thorough, if presented with a thread of the nervousness more commonly seen in highschoolers presenting subpar powerpoint projects. 

“So, Temple was trying to one-up his rival by stealing their plans,” Jiya nutshells around a mouthful of popcorn.

“Wow, he must really hate this Mason guy,” Wyatt comments. He reaches for the popcorn bowl in Jiya’s lap only for Jiya to slap his hand away. “Hey!”

"You didn't ask," Jiya scolds.

"What? Jiya, c'mon!"

“Can I have some?” Flynn asks.

“Sure.”

“What?!”

“Can we focus, please?” Lucy asks from behind the sofa her compatriots are sitting on. She tries very hard to not laugh at Wyatt’s indignant look about Flynn and Jiya sharing the popcorn at his expense, and how he grows even more indignant when Rufus reaches over to grab some with a questioning look and Jiya allows it without a fuss. “Rufus, the shareholder’s meeting is this week, correct?”

“Yep!” Rufus stuffs more popcorn in his mouth. “That’s when he’s presenting the stolen plans.”

“So,” Lucy crosses her arms, “Temple has a rival that he is hellbent on trying to beat. He was willing to hire a band of thieves to do that, that is...that’s one hell of a thing to do.”

Flynn turns around to face her, eyebrow lifting. “What are you thinking, Lucy?”

She runs her tongue over her teeth. “Spaniards. Spaniards will work for this one.”

She walks out of the room without another word.

* * *

Jiya stares at the doorway Lucy just disappeared through. “Is that all she’s going to say?”

Beside her, Flynn chuckles. “Well, it’s good to see she hasn’t changed too much.”

“Can I _please_ have some popcorn?” Wyatt asks.

Flynn holds the bowl out of Wyatt’s reach and Rufus reaches in to grab more. “You heard Jiya, she said get your own.”

“Stuff it, Flynn!”

* * *

“Lucy, are you sure the terrifying bellowing Croatian Tree can charm Temple into any kind of agreement?”

Lucy holds up one finger, and Rufus pauses, hands held up in defense. “Just saying.”

“Just _listen.”_

“Señor Temple. I’m Adam Cortes, here on behalf of Santa Anna’s Trade Initiative.”

Sure enough, Flynn’s flawless Spanish accent comes over the earbuds as he introduces a business deal to the, at the moment, unimpressed Michael Temple.

Most of the business talk goes over Rufus’s head as the conversation progresses, but holy _hell,_ what is that voice? “He’s...he doesn’t sound like an angry bear, how--?”

“Flynn may be a militant theatre director, but he’s also the best performer you will ever meet. Especially when he’s doing it for spite.”

“So when he’s breaking the law, he’s not as scary?”

“No, he’s always scary, just in a more charming way during cons.”

“Oh, great,” Rufus grumbles. 

Lucy puts a hand on his shoulder. “He’ll grow on you. Anyway, did you shut down the secretary’s computer yet?”

Rufus hits several keys on his computer. “Yep, there we go.”

“Don’t forget to redirect her call to IT--”

“Lucy, I’m not new to this.”

“Sorry.”

Rufus manages not to preen too obviously (he thinks) when Jiya answers the phone to the secretary and actually says some of the computer stuff he taught her. 

Lucy nods. “Good job, she works better with a script. Now, here’s hoping Wyatt can actually play a nerdy IT guy.”

“I’m...no offense to him, Lucy, but I’m not holding out hope for that one.”

* * *

“I’m sorry, Adam, you drive a hard bargain, but I’m going to have to say no.”

Rufus deflates in his seat. “Alright, well, it was a long shot anyway--”

“Wait, just…” Lucy holds up her hand, “give him a moment.”

_C’mon, Flynn. Think of something!_

“That’s fine,” Flynn responds to Temple on his end. “That’s fine. If you’re not interested, I’ll just head over to Mason Industries.”

Rufus sits up at the deadly silence following that suggestion. “Oh snap,” he says quietly.

“Mason Industries?” Temple repeats, barely contained disdain in his voice. “And, what makes you think they’ll have a different answer than me?”

The following power play between Temple and Flynn is something to behold, something full of respect between equals but an undeniable acknowledgement at the blatant manipulation taking place.

Who's going to give first?

As Lucy expects, Temple’s hatred of Connor Mason outdoing him on _anything_ wins out. 

“Fine,” the forced politeness and begrudging respect in Temple’s tone is beyond satisfying, “I’ll take the meeting, but I make no promises.”

Lucy lets out a small “whoop” in delight, and she exchanges a high-five with an equally excited Rufus.

* * *

“You got Temple’s financials, Rufus?”

“Yes, Lucy, and I’ve got the passwords. Because I know what I’m doing. Because I’ve been doing this since I was fifteen.”

Lucy clears her throat. “Sorry, I don’t mean to--”

Rufus spins around in his chair, hands placating. “No, Lucy, it’s fine, I’m just messing with you.”

“...right…"

Lucy claps her hands together and strolls back to the kitchen island, where Wyatt is staring down at a chess board in play and sipping at a bottle of beer. His side is losing terribly, but he doesn’t seem all that bothered by it. Jiya is over on the couch, picking at the lock on a pair of handcuffs (the same pair, Lucy is pretty sure, she escaped from at the hospital).

“Not used to playing leader, are you?”

“Never had the chance to,” Lucy responds. She takes a sip of her own beer. “People barely take the small historian seriously, even when she’s always right.”

“I’ll bet.” Wyatt’s fingers tap on the bottle. He points at her. “You know, all this crime seems to be perking you up a bit.”

That is...concerning. 

“I didn’t...I mean…” She gestures vaguely around her and settles onto the bar stool on the side of the island where her chess pieces are. “Doing this, I...I didn’t expect it to…”

“Feel good?” At her sharp gaze, Wyatt shrugs. “It’s not that hard to figure out. Technically, you’re doing a good thing by helping that company that Temple ripped off, so you don’t have a guilty conscience to worry about.”

She doesn’t take her eyes off the chessboard, trying to focus on what her next moves could be. Wyatt does not have a Chess Champion title in his future, but he could be not-terrible if he put some effort into it. “You going to take your turn, or what?”

Wyatt carelessly moves his white bishop right where her black knight can take it, and she tries very hard not to cringe visibly, because seriously? C’mon, she didn’t expect him to be much of a challenge, but at least give her _something_ to work with.

“Listen, Lucy, I wanted to, uh...well, I’m sorry about your sister.”

Lucy nearly knocks her knight over when she reaches to take his bishop. She finishes moving the pieces before glancing up at him with a forced neutral expression. “You don’t know anything about that.”

“Yeah, I do.” Wyatt sounds too factual to be apologetic. “We all do. You may have been underappreciated by other good guys, but us criminals had a healthy respect for you and when you went off the radar...well, a lot of us noticed.” Those stupid puppy dog eyes are so sympathetic, she almost wants to hit him. “It caused quite a stir.”

Lucy looks away again. She can’t talk about this, she doesn’t _want_ to talk about this, she takes a fortifying sip of beer and it _doesn’t help._

“I just don’t understand. How did Rittenhouse justify not paying for her treatments? I thought they were all about family over there?”

Lucy’s eyes shut, but all she can see is white. White walls, white equipment, white sheets, a white hospital gown on her sister’s prone body, and cutting through the blinding, sterile color, the persistent ringing of the heart monitor in her ears--

_“Amy wasn’t really one of us, Lucy. She’s an acceptable loss.”_

“They made an experimental claim on the case, and…” she takes in a shuddering breath and looks down at her hands, “Amy...was my half-sister. They never really considered her family.”

 _But she was_ my _family._

Wyatt considers that. “Well, you could always--” 

Something catches his eye and he groans. “Ugh, great.” He straightens and knocks over his white king. “Not like I was going to win anyway. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Then he walks away.

Lucy’s brow furrows at the emotional whiplash of whatever just happened. “What?”

“Lucy.”

Ah. That’s why.

_Oh, Wyatt. You still haven’t dealt with that?_

Lucy turns around on the barstool to see Flynn lean against the island, his fingers fiddling with his earpiece. “These are going to take some getting used to,” he says to her as he slides the comm into his ear.

She tilts her head in acknowledgement. “Well, we need to keep in contact _somehow_.”

“Never said I had a problem with it,” Flynn retorts. “Just never had a comm device like this one. It’s quite remarkable.”

“Rufus is the best hacker I know. I’d be very surprised if he ever created half-assed equipment.”

A bark of laughter echoes from Rufus across the room.

Flynn chuckles as well before his grin turns into something teasing and vulnerable. He reaches out and fiddles with the white knight on the board. “I guess this time around we’ll _really_ be inside each other’s heads. Won’t we?” The words are just a hint away from flirting, but they're far too gentle to be considered overtly romantic.

Lucy wishes she could avoid his gaze, but Garcia Flynn is not a man you can look away from easily. For many reasons.

One: back when she was still an art appraiser, if Flynn was around, that meant something Big and Illegal was about to happen and she would need to prevent it.

Two: well, she’s not blind, and Flynn always could fill out a suit in ways that kept her mind firmly In The Gutter.

(Not to mention those damn smiles of his, somehow mocking and awed at the same time, they do dangerous things to her pulse.)

And then three: moments like these. 

Where there is no con, no chase, nothing but the two of them and this... _whatever it is_ that has kept them tethered for all these years. Where he looks at her like she can pluck a star out of the sky and she wonders how he can think that when she never believed she could fly in the first place.

Only now it’s so much worse. Because he still looks at her the same way and she’s so much worse than flightless, she’s seven feet underground and suffocating.

She doesn’t know how to claw her way back to air.

Still. Even if she’s never felt worse about herself in her life than right now (and that is _saying_ something), knowing that Flynn still believes in her...it helps. A little.

(And the warmth in his gaze really shouldn’t still set off her pulse like this, but here they are, seven years later and this man still has this effect on her.)

The edges of her lips quirk up a hint. “Yeah. I guess we will be.” She taps the black queen against the flat surface. “Not sure my head is a place you want to be in right now.”

Flynn tilts his head in acknowledgement. “You could have made the same argument about me when we first met.”

She hears the unspoken, _I’m here for you if you need me._ She doesn’t know what she’s done to earn that kind of dedication, considering she’s almost put him in prison too many times to count, and she’s afraid to look too closely at it for fear that it’ll go away and she’ll be left a bigger mess than before.

 _I’m not the same,_ she wants to scream at him. _I’m_ broken _. Can’t you see that?_

They hold each other’s gaze for several more beats. Flynn’s tongue flicks out to wet his lips as he straightens away from the island. “Big day tomorrow. Get some rest,” he says gently into her ear on his way out of the room.

She manages not to watch him walk away, but her lungs still have difficulty working properly.

She hears a chair roll across the floor behind her. 

“Ya’ll know I’m still here, right?”

“Goodnight, Rufus. Keep me posted.”

* * *

Lucy takes a sip of her coffee (laced with Irish whiskey, not that anyone else needs to know that) as she watches Temple drive up to the building the team is commandeering for the con.

“He’s here.”

“What?! Lucy, I’m not downstairs yet!”

Flynn’s soft panic in her ear makes her straighten in her seat. “Guys, if Flynn’s not there, Temple is going to try to find us in the building directory!”

“Why is that a problem?” Jiya asks over the comms.

“ _We’re not in the building directory!_ ”

“And why aren’t we, again?”

“Wyatt, they’re _fake offices_ ,” Rufus defends, “get off my ass.”

“Damn it, the elevator’s busy!” Flynn reports.

“Okay, I’m going to buy you guys some time,” Lucy says. “Jiya, get Flynn downstairs.”

“Got it. Hey, Flynn, how much do you weigh?”

“What?!”

“Lucy?” Rufus calls after her. “What are you doing?”

Lucy whips out her riot baton. “I’m hoping that the drivers of these cars have insurance, that’s what.”

* * *

Flynn hears the shattering of glass over the comms and then the deafening ring of car alarms, but he has no time to ask what the _hell_ Lucy just did because Jiya (a thief he only knows of by unsettling reputation) is buckling a goddamn harness around his torso.

“I’m not sure this is a good idea--”

“Too late!”

Jiya is apparently a _lot_ stronger than she looks, because she manages to yank him over the railing of the stairwell and he is very proud to say that he did _not_ scream on the way down.

He did yell though. Just a little. Because it surprised him.

(What the hell has he gotten himself into?!)

He lands on the bottom floor and Jiya is almost halfway through unbuckling the harness before he recovers his wits enough to help.

(For crying out loud, he’s fought in how many revolutions and wars, and a little stairwell dive off-sets him? He’s getting soft.)

Jiya shoves him out into the hallway and Flynn straights his suit as best he can before approaching Temple, who had just located the directory.

_That was too close._

After their initial greetings, Flynn points to the crowd gathering at the entrance to the building. “Something happen?”

“I heard someone say something about a carjacker shattering car windows. Alarms scared them off though.”

Flynn clears his throat, then recovers his smile. “Well, here’s hoping the situation is resolved. Shall we begin?” 

_Damn, Lucy. That was...that was a hell of a move._

* * *

“Nice job with the zipline, Jiya,” Lucy commends as Jiya plops into the chair across from Rufus.

“I’m surprised he didn’t break an arm,” Jiya responds frankly. 

“I’m not. He’s got a military background.” Lucy tunes back into Flynn’s end of the com. “He’s about to close it up with Temple and the Spaniards.”

“I have to say,” Rufus comments. “We’re still doing a bangin’ job.”

“Yeah, but twice with you people is more than enough,” Wyatt says as he approaches the table. He yanks the large glasses from his face and tosses them onto the table. “I never want to do that again.”

“I don’t know.” Lucy gives him a knowing look. “You seemed pretty into that _Star Trek_ discussion for someone who claims not to be a geek.”

Wyatt splutters, but before he can work up some kind of defense, Rufus drops his head back. “Man, I thought you’d be more of a _Star Wars_ kind of man.”

“I prefer _Star Trek_ , too,” Jiya chimes in.

Rufus turns a teasing glance at Jiya. “Well, I guess we’ll never be friends either, then.”

Jiya’s expression becomes utterly crestfallen. Thank _God_ Rufus notices immediately. “No, Jiya, I was just teasing you, I didn’t mean--”

“Rufus isn’t the best with women,” Lucy interrupts. “As is apparent.”

“Lucy!”

“...oh…” Jiya’s brow furrows and smooths out. “So...you weren’t--”

“Shush!”

The group goes quiet as they watch Temple stroll out of the building with all the gravitas of a man who thinks he has all the answers. Once he’s out of sight, the four of them hurry to the entrance to meet Flynn.

“So he’s hooked?”

“Oh, he’s hooked alright,” Flynn gloats. 

“Alright.” Lucy looks around at the rest of the team. “Now comes the tricky part.”

“Oh yeah,” Rufus comments in a dry tone, “like the rest of this has been a piece of cake.”

* * *

Lucy won’t lie. It is beyond satisfying to get to watch, first hand, as Temple meets his downfall.

_They never suspect the Spaniards are real._

And then getting to call the bastard and rub it in.

“Oh, and tell anyone what happened--if anyone would even believe you--and next time I won’t be so nice.”

Lucy hangs up with a shit-eating grin and finds the rest of the crew in a lovely pavilion up ahead, all except Rufus staring slack-jawed at their checks.

“What’s going on?”

Rufus hands Lucy her cut for the job. She opens the envelope, pulls out the check and--

“WHAT?!”

“There was an overlap in the London stock market, valuation carried over...look, I’m just that good, alright?” Rufus brags good-naturedly.

“Khara, this is the best payday I’ve ever seen.” Jiya jumps up and down on her toes like an excited puppy. 

Wyatt lets out a disbelieving laugh. “I could buy two full parking lots of racecars with this. Dude, I might kiss you.”

“Please don’t.” 

“I have to say,” Flynn says, “it’s almost a shame this was a one-time job.”

That puts a wet blanket on the growing excitement building between all of them.

“Yeah, yeah,” Rufus coughs. “I mean, I could buy an entire fleet of Republic armada figurines, maybe even a giant Death Star.”

“Yep,” Wyatt clears his throat. “This is it, huh?”

Lucy presses her lips together and nods. 

The entire group turns heel and walks away.

And that’s that.

* * *

Or, at least, that’s what Lucy thinks, until five minutes later, when she hears feet running behind her. 

“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever been that calm during a job before. My nerves usually get me into trouble.”

“Rufus, _no_.”

“And look, I’m still trying to help my brother pay for college, my mom needs help, I can’t retire right now!”

“I can’t stop either! I’ll go insane, and you, you thought of stuff I never would have thought of during these jobs--”

“Jiya, please--”

“And what exactly do you plan on doing now?”

“Oh my God, _Wyatt_ , I’m not your concern.”

“Look, clearly you need this too, or you’re just going to fall apart again. And you know what, I...actually didn’t hate working with this team, so why not?”

“Lucy.”

She finally stops in her tracks at that particular voice. She turns around and sure enough, there stands Garcia Flynn with the rest of them.

“Really? You too?”

Flynn shrugs. “We all worked really well together. Good payday, good job, I don’t see why the momentum should stop.”

“Maybe. But I’m not a thief. I _stop_ bad guys. Remember?”

"Then let's go get the bad guys." Flynn’s smile is almost wolf-like in its feral quality, and Lucy hates how attractive it looks on him.

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out two chess pieces: a black queen and a white knight. He holds them out to her.

“What do you say, Lucy?"

* * *

Lucy leans forward in her armchair to better comfort the grieving parents sitting before her. She puts her hand on the sobbing mother’s clenched fists. 

_Seventeen. A seventeen year old girl is dead. Because corporations can’t be held accountable for their mistakes._

“Just take your time,” Lucy reassures. “It’s okay.”

“They said it was an accident,” the mother forces through tears, “but that company, those _bastards,_ they killed our daughter! I want them _hurt_!”

The shaken husband puts his arm around his wife. His hand rubs down his face. “I’m sorry, but we...I don’t know if we can pay you--”

“There’s no need to worry about that,” Flynn answers. He’s standing behind Lucy’s armchair with Wyatt, Jiya, and Rufus. “We have...alternative means of revenue.”

The husband looks at them all, bewildered. “I...I don’t think I understand. We were told we couldn’t even appeal. What exactly can you do?”

Lucy sits back in her armchair and clasps her hands at her knees.

_This is for all the Amys in the world who died for the sake of greed and power._

“People like that,” Lucy begins, “corporations like that, they have all the money and all the power, and they use it to take advantage of people who can’t fight back. Right now, you’re alone, and you’re drowning. We’re offering you...a lifeboat.”


	2. Interlude: Reflections

Garcia Flynn never intended to turn to a life of crime.

But after losing his wife and daughter to a home invasion (the motivations of which he _still_ has very few leads on, but he knows for a fact it wasn’t a random burglary), Flynn had very little to keep him above water. Every breath felt like salt water scratching and scraping away at his lungs, eating him from the inside out, and he honestly can’t recall most of what he did during those first few weeks of intense grief.

He can trace his transformation to about three months after Lorena and Iris died. He had been staring blankly at a colonist museum which, and he knew this due to his previous occupation as head of his security firm, had a habit of holding onto their stolen artifacts.

All it took was a fleeting thought: _I know what the security protocols here are. They don’t know my face. I could get in and out without a hitch._

Flynn then blinked and realized…

There was nothing stopping him, was there?

And so began the life and career of Garcia Flynn, greatest grifter in Europe and the Americas and occasional gunslinger when the job called for it (though he usually tried to avoid that these days).

He’s willing to admit that he didn’t intend to cater the kind of reputation that he has now. He honestly thought that this job would get him killed and then he wouldn’t have to continue on with the agony of outliving his baby girl. The fact that he's still alive is a constant source of surprise to him.

But at least along the way to death he was sticking it to those billionaire assholes who thought they could just flaunt their wealth by displaying important artifacts stolen from other cultures for the lesser population to behold.

This momentum lasted up until Lucy Preston came crashing back into his life.

Literally.

Their first meeting had been...accidental. It happened long before starting his own business, before he even met Lorena. If his faith was still as strong as it had been before his life splintered apart, he would probably think that that first meeting had been part of some bigger picture. That maybe God still had a plan for him. But Flynn didn’t know where he stood with God since He allowed his family to be brutally gunned down.

The second time meeting Lucy he considered to be more of an _actual_ meeting. 

Her old company Rittenhouse had dispatched her to chase him down (he must have _really_ pissed them off when he stole back their wrongfully obtained artifacts related to the Lost Colony of Roanoke), which kickstarted the most entertaining chase he’d ever been a part of. 

After _months_ of her missing him by a matter of days/hours, getting continually outraged at the little notes he left behind for her (okay, fine, that was a little juvenile of him, but he’d never had _this much fun_ with any other law enforcement sent after him), she finally caught up to him at a launch party for a new blimp set to advertise for a company involved in blood diamonds, with several items of jewelry made of those blood diamonds on display for all to see. 

He’ll never forget how it felt, seeing her across the pavilion of the outside party, realizing who exactly she was, and what she was doing there.

(The fact that she looked utterly radiant in burgundy had nothing to do with it, absolutely not. She stole the air from every party-goer she passed.)

She couldn’t expose him without making a scene, so instead she just...approached him. Red lips tugged into a smile that must have sent lesser men to their knees, dark eyes predatory, Flynn managed to only barely keep from gawking as she sauntered up him without fear. She stopped several inches away from him, head tilted in consideration.

Flynn waited to see what she would do.

Eventually, her smile had turned from merely polite interest to something closer to mischief. She held out her hand. “Lucy Preston.”

He knew that. He _knew_ that she knew that he knew that. But something about the official introduction made him smile as well. He took her hand and shook it. “Isaiah Franklin.”

Her brow lifted and he inclined his head.

_Did you really think I was going to give my real name at a public event?_

She pursed her lips in acknowledgement of his silent point. “It’s nice to meet you, _Isaiah_ .” Their hands released one another, and he had to put extra effort into _not_ flexing his fingers afterwards to get rid of the lingering warmth in his hand. “May I ask what, exactly, you’re doing here?”

Translation: _what the hell are you planning this time, you elusive son of a bitch?_

His grin grew.

What followed was a heavily-disguised interrogation into his plans that somehow turned into an hour of almost-flirting and actual conversation about her job and his motivations. She acknowledged the depravity of the event and what it was celebrating, but even if she didn't seem inclined to shed a tear over him screwing these bastards over, she still had to arrest him for past crimes. The fact that she wasn't in a hurry to do so was very telling.

Sometime during their exchange, Lucy had picked up a flute of champagne. Her fingers tapped against the glass like a metronome. She had still been wearing an engagement ring at the time.

“You know what I have to do,” she whispered. She actually sounded a little regretful.

Flynn chuckled and shook his head. “I expect nothing less. But do you really think you can stop me?”

“Do you think I can’t?” she tossed right back.

Oh, wow, she really was something, wasn’t she? Flynn is pretty sure that if he hadn’t been fascinated by her before, he _absolutely_ fell smitten during that hour.

“I think--what the hell?!”

The partners he had been working with chose that moment to screw up what was _just_ supposed to be a distraction where the blimp controls went offline and delayed the take off (so Flynn could hurry and steal the jewelry pieces without much fuss) and instead turned into the blimp _catching on fire and crashing after take off._

He was sure to inform Lucy that this wasn’t part of his plan as he carried her away from the wreckage, much to her _very_ unhappy protests. He had bruises on his back from where her fists made angry contact for a few days.

On the bright side, he managed to steal the jewelry.

And he...might have also tracked down the hotel where Lucy had been staying and left her a note and a gold locket he thought she would like. Nothing flashy, just a vintage, precious looking piece that he actually bought with her in mind several months prior. It took a lot of self-control not to stick around and see her reaction from a safe vantage point.

(He pretended not to notice the locket dangling from her neck the next several times they ran into each other.)

After that disastrous introduction, they kept encountering each other for years. The more he talked to her, the more he learned about her, the more he saw the potential she was constantly doubting because no one she worked with gave her the respect she deserved, even though she was easily the smartest person he’d ever known.

It really pissed him off that she was so underappreciated, this woman who stormed in with all the grace of a vengeful goddess and got her damn job done while everyone else floundered and faltered around her, and he told her that once. Well, not the “goddess” part. Just that she deserved better. Deserved _respect_.

In the same breath, he also offered for her to join his spite-fueled one-man crusade against the one-percent of the world. Because he had had a little too much to drink at the time and it seemed like a valid idea to propose a partnership with the woman who had been trying to arrest him for three years thus far.

Obviously, she rejected that idea, citing her sister and her loyalty to Rittenhouse and _not being a criminal_ as her primary reasons. 

But he couldn't let go of the thought. That the two of them were... _fated_. In some way or another.

He didn’t push it on her, but he brought it up at least once every time they saw each other over the next several years, especially when he saw how her job was wearing on her confidence. 

Every time, she would just laugh it off and go back to trying to handcuff him to a pole until back-up could arrive (to no avail, he usually escaped in more than enough time).

(He never had any idea just how bad it was. How trapped Lucy was at that company, even before Rittenhouse crossed the line.)

Now, Flynn thinks as he looks over his movie script for any glaring errors before sending it in to his friend in Hollywood, it’s happening.

The five of them have separated temporarily in order to get their affairs in order, organize and disperse their newfound wealth, all to give Lucy and Rufus time to get the new arrangement together. He's sitting at a desk in the suite he bought when he decided to lay low for a while and join the local theatre company.

He’s working with Lucy. _Flynn_ is going to be working with _Lucy._

They’re a team. At last.

And this is absolutely _not_ how he wanted it.

Not the Robin Hood crusade, no, he is all for that. It’s everything he ever wanted to do, but on a completely different scale. He’s even somewhat okay with attempting to play nice with this ragtag team of misfits. (He’ll certainly have fun pushing Wyatt’s buttons for a while.)

But he _never_ wanted the catalyst for this working relationship to be Amy’s death.

When he and Lucy had the chance to chat during times when she wasn’t necessarily on the clock, one of the things she _always_ loved to tell him about was her sister. The craziest stories, told with a spark in her eye, love and fond frustration lacing every word. She even said once that Flynn would probably get along well with her. “Like a house on fire” was the exact phrase she used. Judging by the stories, Flynn would say she was right.

He’ll never know now.

He slams his script down onto the table. He rubs at his eyes underneath his glasses. 

He doesn’t know if the rest of the team can tell, but Lucy is fractured. She was at the top of her game during that last heist, but he can still see that she’s fraying at the edges, that Rittenhouse’s betrayal and Amy’s death have left her...not broken, he doesn’t want to say that. But she’s not quite whole. 

Flynn wants to help her. God knows he never wanted this, he never wanted her to be betrayed by the people she worked with in such a way, even if he’s warned her for _years_ that companies like that care more about their greed than their people, he never wanted this to happen to her, he _didn’t--_

But it happened. And there’s nothing that he can do to change it, short of suddenly discovering a time machine.

The vibrating of his phone catches his attention. He answers it in a daze.

It’s Rufus. “We’ve got a job.”

The excitement in the man’s voice makes Flynn grin in anticipation. “When and where?”

“I’ll text you the address. We want to get started tomorrow.”

“I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow, then.”

Flynn hangs up the phone. “And so it begins,” he says to the empty room, moonlight shining through half-closed blinds.

This isn’t how he wanted a team up with Lucy to start. But he’ll be damned if he abandoned her now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my goodness! I was not expecting such positive responses to this so quickly! This is my first foray into writing for Timeless and Leverage, so I'm so glad you guys think I'm doing them both justice. I can't promise that updates will be regular, because I'm in the middle of house hunting with my family, but my muse is fired up, so I don't plan on abandoning this any time soon.
> 
> Edit: You can thank lostininspiration for the idea that Flynn gave Lucy her locket and gave me all the feels over the idea. She's been letting me scream and rant about this idea to her ever since she got sucked into Leverage and she's just wonderful. Thanks, dearie!


	3. The Lonely Road Job

_"What you really are is a revolutionary fighting for freedom against a corrupt power, and it's a lonely road.” --Garcia Flynn “The Alamo” (Season 1 Episode 5)_

* * *

“Hold on, you’re telling me you haven’t spent _any_ of the money we got from that last job?”

“Nope.”

Wyatt stares, uncomprehending, at Jiya across the elevator. Flynn rolls his eyes from the other corner.

“You’re telling me you didn’t buy _anything_ with all that money?”

Jiya shrugs. She pushes off the wall as the elevator doors open. “I’m a thief. Why would I buy something when I can steal it?”

“She has you there,” Flynn comments. The three of them stroll down the hall. “I bought a safe house in Dubai. And Tokyo. And São Paulo.” They stop in front of the door at the end of the hall and Flynn turns to Wyatt. “Did you buy that parking lot of racecars you mentioned?”

Wyatt scoffs. “What makes you think I’m going to tell two thieves what I did with multi-million dollar payout?”

“Can’t speak for Jiya, but I was thinking I’d rely on my charming good looks to get you talking.”

Wyatt storms inside the room with a frustrated growl. Jiya exchanges a conspiratorial look with Flynn as they follow after him. 

They stop three steps later at the sight of the giant room of offices and decorations, particularly the large sign right up ahead: _Lifeboat Consulting & Assoc. _

“Um...?” Jiya mutters. “What is all of this?”

“Welcome to our new cover story!” Rufus declares, entering the room with his arms extended. 

“Rufus, what the hell is _that?”_ Flynn points at a painting (an actual _painting,_ for God’s sake) that looks to be _him,_ but in another forty years.

“Oh, that’s part of the cover story. That’s company founder, Dobrivoje Popovic. He founded Lifeboat Consulting and Associates back in 1913.”

“And why, pray tell, does he look like _me_?”

Rufus shrugs. “I work better with a reference.”

“Wait, you painted that yourself?” Jiya purses her lips. “Not bad.”

“Thank you, Jiya!” 

“I still don’t see why you had to make an older _me_ and on top of that, give him the most _ridiculous_ name _\--”_

“I think it’s my favorite decoration so far,” Wyatt interrupts. He’s got a smug, evil smile that Flynn suddenly wants to punch.

Rufus grabs a pile of folders from the table by the entrance and hands them out. “Lifeboat Consulting is clean as a whistle. Our corporate taxes are paid from the last ninety years. That goes for your IDs as partners as well. You guys get dental and pension plans, and in these folders you’ll find employment records, case files, and company newsletters. If you’ll follow me through our home away from home--”

“Damn, these are better benefits than I got when I worked with the N.S.A,” Flynn comments. 

“This is super thorough,” Wyatt shakes his head as he scans through the folder. “I mean, you even included personal stories from public company events? Dude.”

Jiya waves her file like a flag. “I won the apple-bobbing contest at a Labour Day Picnic! Did I get a prize?”

“I encourage all efforts to decorate the rest of this place, so please,” Rufus continues, “bring pictures, plants, geek merch--”

“Rufus, did you really spend your cut of the cash on this place?” Flynn interrupts. 

“What, are you kidding? Lucy did with what she had left. I think she gave most of it away to some charity podcast, but what she didn’t give away went into all this.”

“Wait. Really?” Wyatt crosses his arms. “She just...gave it away?”

Flynn is less surprised than the rest of them, but probably because he suspects that’s the same charity podcast that Amy ran when she was still alive.

(Flynn was a fan of that podcast. He had tuned in whenever he had the means to do so.)

They follow Rufus into a dark room. The lights turn on automatically to reveal a giant conference room with expansive screens covering one entire wall.

“This is _my_ space,” Rufus says with delight. “With the equipment in here, I can tap into just about every electronic banking system in the world, I’ve got photo and video forensic programs, I can find our clients from the heuristic data crawlers creeping on the news websites--”

“Can you nutshell faster, please?”

Rufus ignores Wyatt far more gracefully than Flynn would have. “And I’ve got facial recognition databases tied into the CIA, NSA, and the FBI. So people, we are, officially, in business.” Rufus taps a button on a remote laying on the table and the screens light up. “I will now take questions and compliments.”

“How much do I have to pay you to take that damn painting down?" Flynn asks.

“Alright people!”

The team turns to see Lucy at the entrance to the conference room. “Thanks to Wyatt here, we have our first official job. Bam Bam says, ‘Hi,’ by the way.” She tosses a flash drive to Rufus. “Let’s get started, shall we?”

* * *

Wyatt Logan would never willingly admit that he has _anything_ in common with Garcia Flynn other than a military background and a nonexistent personal life. 

The thing is, they do have a lot in common. For example, neither of them intended to become criminals. 

But Wyatt’s path to corruption is a little less tragic.

He left Afghanistan in one piece physically, but a part of who he used to be _certainly_ didn’t come back. His ex-wife can attest to that.

(A high school sweetheart can only do so much when his problems rooted far deeper than what he brought back from the Middle East.)

Jessica did her best to help him, but he wasn't the best husband even before he did his stint for Uncle Sam. The divorce was inevitable, painful, but as amicable as it could have been, considering how awful those last few years had gone.

(She still calls to check on him when she can track him down. But for the most part, their lives have completely unraveled into individual threads. He doesn’t imagine those threads will ever come together again, but she doesn’t hate him, she still cares about him, and that’s about all he can ask for. Last he heard, she got remarried.)

He had no reason to stick around and the idea of attempting domesticity on his own was overwhelming (and probably indicative of another reason why his marriage failed) so he started working as an independent retrieval specialist.

It certainly wasn’t _better_ than his time in the military, but it kept him from thinking about how empty his life felt at the time.

He’s been living in limbo ever since.

Now...he doesn’t know what’s going to happen, where this Vigilante Crusade with Lucy Preston, of all people, and the rest of these weirdos is going to take him.

He certainly didn’t expect his new career to bring Bam Bam back into his life.

Dave Baumgardner had called him out of the blue a few weeks after that first job. Apparently Dave had heard he was in town and wanted to catch up.

Meeting him at a hospital was unexpected. Seeing the larger than life man in a _wheelchair_ was even more unexpected.

“It’s not permanent,” Dave was quick to reassure Wyatt. “The rehab will be tough, I’ll need a few surgeries too, but it’s doable.” His cheerful smile faltered then. “That’s kind of the problem.”

Then came Dave’s story. Some private contractor company that spooked and shot at Dave’s squad, killing too many friends, and leaving Dave in this condition. 

“Villiers Security won’t cop to the shooting. They wouldn’t cooperate in the investigation, so there’s no way they’re going to pay for my rehab. The whole thing was dropped a few months ago. I just want the medical bills taken care of, but it doesn’t look like I’m going to get it.”

Oh, Wyatt thought at that moment. This is what kismet feels like.

“What if…” Wyatt had said, “...I said I could help with that? Or, at least, I know someone who could help you?”

Dave’s brow furrowed. His hands folded in his lap. “I’d ask you what the hell you’re talkin’ about.”

So Wyatt had called Lucy, asked her to come talk to Dave.

“Why can’t you?”

“I just picked up a gig in Berlin, it’ll take me a few days.”

Lucy made a considering sound that crackled across his phone’s speakers. “Give me the address. I make no promises though.”

Wyatt had known she would take it. Lucy may seem a little... _edgier_ these days, but Wyatt didn’t think she would really turn down a chance to help a genuinely good person like Dave.

As glad as Wyatt is that they're taking Dave’s case, he is still entirely unprepared to watch video evidence of the shooting. It’s nothing he hasn’t already witnessed up close and personal, but it’s entirely different to see it happen from this vantage point to someone he considers a friend.

Judging by the heavy, solemn silence, the rest of the crew is shaken by the video too.

“Dave Baumgardner is the cameraman, and our client,” Lucy begins. “He says the contractors spooked and started firing, but the official story the public got was that they were hit by insurgents.”

“That’s bullshit,” Wyatt says. “Insurgents would have used AK-47s. These gunshots don’t sound like AK-47s, they sound like 5.56 NATO rounds.”

Rufus blinks at him in horror. “And how the hell do you figure that?”

“AK-47s have more of a ‘crack’ kind of sound.”

“You _seriously_ ID’d the weapons from the gunshot sounds?”

Wyatt shrugs. “It’s a distinctive sound.”

Across the table, Flynn tilts his head in agreement.

Rufus shudders and hits a button on his remote to pull up more images on the screens, overlapping Dave’s video. “Villiers Security is hardcore. Billion dollar company with big fat government contracts everywhere the States have troops. This is the CEO: Patrick Ramsey. Super paranoid and very professional. And a total dick, I’ll just go ahead and say.”

“So,” Flynn begins with heavy sarcasm, “you want us to take on a private army. Someone who has their own intel assets and a lot of trigger pullers.”

Lucy presses her palms onto the table. “They also have lobbyists in every office in DC.” She gestures to Rufus. “The thing about coverups? It takes a _lot_ of paperwork to keep all those lies straight.”

Rufus nods. “Yep, internal emails, memos.”

“Wait,” Jiya jumps up from her chair as Lucy gestures for everyone to follow her out of the room. “So, we’re going to steal evidence and threaten to expose the company. Straightforward blackmail session, right?”

“Yes,” Lucy answers in a voice far too cheerful for the subject at hand. “But, just enough blackmail so that Bam Bam can pay for his rehab. Well,” she bobs her head from side-to-side, considering, “maybe a few million more, to cover some of the damages.”

“Whoa there, tiger,” Wyatt holds out a hand. “That’s a little much, don’t you think? Look, I want to help Bam Bam, but that’ll never hold up in court.”

“But that’s just it, Wyatt. Bam Bam is lucky, he doesn’t have lawyers.” Lucy holds her hands out to all of them. “He has thieves.”

They each exchange glances with one another, and Wyatt can feel everyone’s enthusiasm growing at the prospect of doing something like this. Something none of them have ever done before.

Maybe there really is something to this vigilante thing. 

As they file out, one by one, he hears Flynn inquire after Lucy about whether the painting of him hanging in the lobby is _really_ necessary.

“That reminds me.” Wyatt discreetly slips Rufus a few hundred dollar bills. “Nice job on the painting.”

Rufus smirks as he pockets the money. “Hey man, it’s your funeral when he finds out.”

* * *

“Why did _I_ get stuck working waitstaff?”

Lucy rolls her eyes. “Better access and flexibility, Wyatt. If we were all guests, we wouldn’t get as much done.”

Despite her perfectly logical point, she still hears Wyatt grumble over the earbuds as he strolls past her, carrying a serving tray of champagne. She rolls her eyes. 

“I thought you lived to serve, Logan?” Flynn teases.

“Flynn,” Lucy says in a warning tone as Wyatt splutters in indignation. “Not now.”

Getting into Villiers’s private party honoring some congressman named Jenkins had been far easier than one would think. But then, that’s what they have Rufus for. Some schedule modifications and a few fake invites later, and Lucy and Flynn were dressed to kill and Wyatt was there to serve as backup as needed, try to gather more intel from Villiers’s CEO.

Meanwhile, Rufus and Jiya are going to infiltrate the HQ across town.

At the moment, Lucy can hear Jiya trying to reassure a highly unsure Rufus that of _course_ the rig they were going to use to scale the building was safe, because Jiya custom-designed it herself.

“Okay, so it’s tested?”

“Not yet.”

“What? When exactly were you planning on testing it, Jiya?”

“Right now.”

“Wait, wha--”

Rufus’s question cuts off with a terrified shout and Lucy assumes Jiya shoved the poor man off the building.

“That is _exactly_ what it felt like,” Flynn mutters into his earbud.

“Guys,” Lucy interrupts, “you’ve got a limited time before the guards sweep the office again, so get it together.”

“We’re already inside the office, Lucy,” Rufus reassures. “I mean, my hands are shaking like I just got electrocuted and I want to puke into the trash bin, but hey, at least it’s over.”

“Until we need to get out again,” Jiya reminds him.

“Don’t remind me.”

“I’m about to make contact with Ramsey,” Flynn reports.

“Okay, keep me posted.”

Lucy lingers by a crowd in the corner and listens as Flynn introduces himself to the congressman and Ramsey with his cover story as someone who works for a London based defense contract. Her ears pick up on something about a bill.

“Rufus? Do you know anything about this appropriations bill they’re talking about?”

“Lucy, this guy has an RFID security card on his power supply, I’m barely listening to all the political gibberish right now.”

“OH! A safe! Old school security for the win! Wait…khara.”

“What's wrong, Jiya?”

“The safe is voice activated.”

“Well...we’ll have to deal with that later. Flynn, we need to get an RFID card to Wyatt, so I’ll be there in a moment.”

As Lucy makes her way to Flynn’s position, thinking fast for a way to get to Ramsey’s wallet without him noticing, she listens to more of the conversation.

“The company has been interested in meeting senators,” Flynn says. “But honestly, I think congressmen would probably be a better fit.”

“You know the great thing about congressmen?” Ramsey asks. “Fifty, even a hundred grand well-spent gets one elected, but once they’re in, the incumbency rate is over ninety-five percent, so you can get an average eighteen, twenty years use out of one. In these uncertain times, buying a United States congressman is one of the best investments a corporation can make!”

A horrified silence falls over the comms.

“...well, that is one of the most disturbing things I’ve ever heard in my life,” Rufus eventually says. “And I expose evil white dudes for the hell of it.”

“Keep focused, guys,” Lucy reminds them. 

Inspiration strikes her when she spots the plate of shrimp. While Flynn keeps Ramsey busy, she grabs a piece of dipped shrimp and, as softly as possible, drags a line of dip across the back of Ramsey’s suit. She walks far enough away to allay suspicion and tosses the shrimp behind her. 

Then she grabs a napkin off the table and walks back over. “Excuse me, sir?” Once she has Ramsey and Flynn’s attention, she points out the stain and between her and Flynn, they manage to briefly swindle his wallet, slip the RFID card to Wyatt as he passed by with his serving tray, and put the wallet back in the jacket pocket with Ramsey none-the-wiser.

Once Wyatt copies the RFID chip from his phone and sends it to Rufus’s, Lucy hears a gratified, “I’m in!” from their hacker.

“I’ve been sampling Ramsey’s speech,” Jiya reports. “But I’m still missing a few.” She then lists off about ten different speech sounds she still needs.

“Well then,” Lucy sighs. “Wyatt?”

“Hold on, I need two food trays for this one. Thank God for French food.”

Thanks to some fancy word finagling and a little playing dumb on Wyatt’s part, he manages to get Ramsey to list off a whole list of French gibberish that gets most of what Jiya needs. 

“I'm still missing the sounds 'eff,' 'uh,' and 'kuh'--”

She’s interrupted when Ramsey screams a few choice words at Wyatt when he realized he was fed rather plastic-tasting shrimp.

“--actually, that was exactly what I needed. Perfect. A little loud, though.”

“Lucy, I’m going to talk to Congressman Ellis.”

Lucy’s brow furrows. “What for, Flynn?”

“I’m...I have some suspicions. I think he knows more about that Villiers shooting than he lets on.”

“Okay, but make it quick. Rufus, what have you got on your end?”

“Um...this is weird. It looks like they’ve got access to Bam Bam’s medical records, psych evals...oh dang, they’ve even been reading his emails.”

“They’re tapping his phones too,” Jiya adds. “I found pictures of Bam Bam in the safe. From the hospital. These are from _yesterday.”_

“Investigations into the shooting finished up months ago,” Rufus points out. “So what are they doing watching Bam Bam still?”

Lucy’s mind whirs, thinking back to Bam Bam’s video and the images of those Villiers trucks he caught on it. A horrible gear slides into place.

“Flynn, did you get what you needed from the congressman?”

“Yes, why?”

“You, me, and Wyatt need to get to the hospital. Rufus, Jiya, hurry and get out of there, meet us at the office.”

“What’s going on?” Wyatt asks. “Why go to Bam Bam this late?”

“Because the shooting wasn’t an accident,” Lucy answers heavily as she hurries to the exit. “Villiers’s trying to cover something up that Bam Bam saw. Something to do with those trucks on the video. He’s a witness, and I highly doubt Villiers wants to leave any witnesses alive.”

* * *

It was close. Too close.

They found Bam Bam in the nick of time and Wyatt managed to dispatch the goons sent to kill him as well. They get the soldier squared away in a safehouse and return to their HQ to meet with Rufus and Jiya.

Lucy is pouring herself a glass of vodka while the team looks over the supplies Wyatt grabbed off of the fighters. 

“The bastards were going to fake his suicide,” Flynn growls as he tosses a faux note onto the table.

“The gun they have is registered to Bam Bam, from a gunshop a mile from his house, that’s just,” Rufus shakes his head, “that’s awful.”

“He’s safe for the moment,” Lucy finally says. “That’s what matters.”

“Lucy, really?” Wyatt crosses his arms. “This isn’t a game. They almost _killed_ him. They could come after us next. That one Villiers hitter used a knife like an ex-marine. Force Recon, if I had to guess.”

Jiya turns to him with a questioning gaze. “Wait, you can tell that from a knife-fighting style?”

“It’s a distinctive style!”

“Look,” Rufus stands up and paces erratically, “this is out of my league, okay? My old gig never got anyone hurt.”

Jiya nods in agreement. “I don’t hurt people in my line of work.”

Wyatt shrugs sheepishly. “It’s _literally_ my job to hurt people, so…”

“I’ve had to play dirty too,” Flynn agrees. 

Rufus rolls his eyes. “Okay, fine, but still, I don’t know if I could live with myself if this guy dies--”

“This wasn’t _my_ idea, remember?” Lucy interjects. She sets her glass of vodka down and crosses her arms. “I didn't suggest this. _You guys_ wanted to keep working. You agreed to do the jobs I picked. Now that it’s getting a little complicated, you want to bow out? Fine.” She gestures behind her. “The door’s right there. I’m not forcing anyone to stay who isn’t in this all the way.”

A long, heavy quiet follows. She doesn’t dare look at Flynn. She’s worried what she’ll see.

“I’ll finish this one for Bam Bam,” Wyatt finally says. “But that’s it.”

Another beat. Then Jiya agrees, “Just this one.”

Rufus nods as well, and when she risks a glance at Flynn..for once, she can’t read his face.

Lucy is surprised by how much that hurts. That the rest of them are already willing to quit good work. That she can’t even tell if _Flynn_ will stick around.

 _They’re thieves,_ she reminds herself. _What were you expecting?_

* * *

Flynn is the last one to leave the offices for the evening.

At least, he thinks that until he passes the one Lucy had claimed for herself and sees her inside past the open door, her head resting on the desk, cushioned by her arms. A mostly empty vodka bottle rests by her elbow.

He spends several moments wondering if it would be a good idea to wake her up so she could head home when he hears footsteps approach him.

“Is she okay?”

Flynn turns to see Rufus next to him, his eyes on Lucy too.

“Why are you asking me?”

Rufus gives him a “do you really think I’m that stupid, c’mon man” look. “Obviously, you guys have some weird, flirty past that goes pretty far back. So, tell me, is she going to be okay?”

Flynn should probably be more worried that his affection for Lucy is so obvious, but for right now… “What does it matter? This is the last job we're doing together anyway.”

He doesn’t want it to be. Yes, he’s still unsure about how this particular situation will end, considering how much _bigger_ it’s become. It was supposed to just be stealing and blackmail, not challenging a small army head-on.

Still. Flynn isn’t as ready to quit as the others are. He wants to see this through, and not just because he doesn’t want to leave Lucy yet.

Although...would she even want to continue working withhim when everyone else is gone? Is he enough?

Rufus looks down, shame tugging on his mouth. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s right. After this, no more Lifeboat.” He sighs and looks around. “Shame all my loving hard work will go to waste.”

Flynn has nothing to say to that, so he leaves Rufus standing there and enters Lucy’s office. He takes off his jacket and sets it on her shoulders. She doesn’t stir. He takes the vodka bottle.

When he looks up, Rufus is watching him thoughtfully. Flynn exits the room, nods in a silent farewell, and leaves the office.

 _Shame,_ he thinks, much to his surprise. _I was starting to like this place too._

* * *

Congressman Wayne Ellis is in on whatever this secret plot thing is with Villiers Security.

And the best way to figure out exactly what said conspiracy is: turn the two people involved on each other like territorial honey badgers.

It was a lot easier than it should have been, but Rufus figured out a long time ago that men like this are _notorious_ for putting pride before logic.

Flynn and Lucy tag team to plant the seeds, Lucy meeting with Ramsey and Flynn “coincidentally” running into Ellis. Then it only takes a few select calls to delay some extravagant house remodeling for the congressman and Jiya stealing Ramsey’s earmarks from an Appropriations Bill to cause conflict.

“So, why can’t I just hack into the bill and make the adjustments myself?”

Rufus asks this as he and Lucy are sitting in the conference room, a bowl of popcorn sitting between them on the table, as they watch Jiya maneuver her way through Congress on the security feed displayed on the monitors. 

“That wouldn’t work,” Lucy says after taking a sip of beer. She’s already halfway through the bottle, Rufus can't help but notice. “They don’t use computers. Bills go into a wooden box on the Congressional floor called the Hub.”

Rufus chokes on a popcorn kernel. Once he clears his throat, “I’m sorry, did you just say a ‘wooden _box’_?”

“Yes.”

“A box.”

“Yep.”

“Made of _wood.”_

“Uh-huh.”

Rufus throws his hands up. “We put a man on the goddamn moon, but our _laws_ go into a _wooden box?”_

“Unfortunately, yes.” Lucy gestures at the screen. “So, in order to get Ramsey to think that Ellis is leaving him in the dust, he needs to believe that Ellis submitted the appropriations bill without any of the Villiers’s usual contracts. So we’ll need to put our own pages into the bill.”

“That means we’d only be able to get at it from-- _oh!”_ A bright smile cuts across Rufus’s face. “So, we’re not just breaking the law here. We are _stealing_ a law. Well, Jiya is, anyway.” He shakes his head. “Damn, she’s going to be a legend.”

Lucy hums in agreement. “I’d say she already is, wouldn’t you?”

“Fair enough.”

Up on the screen, Jiya waves at the camera just before she slides the altered bill into the Hub. “The X Wing has docked,” she stage whispers into her earpiece.

Wait. Jiya can quote Star Trek _and_ Star Wars? Oh God, he's in so much trouble.

“Alright!” Rufus grabs his untouched bottle of beer and toasts Lucy’s. “Get it, girl!”

“Careful, Rufus, your crush is showing,” Lucy teases.

“...shut up.”

(Jiya stole a law. She _stole a goddamn law._ It is one of the most impressive things Rufus has ever seen, the woman is so damn _cool.)_

Later on that day, Rufus thinks it's oddly satisfying to sit in the conference room with the others, once they get back from their respective missions. They all listen to Ramsey and Ellis go at each other, and then, thankfully, Ellis drops a piece of information that Rufus can definitely use.

He tries not to enjoy the company too much, since apparently it won't be happening again after they pull this off.

He stops the audio. “So, what follows after this is about the equivalent of make up phone sex, but for rich dudes--”

“Thank you for that image,” Wyatt groans.

“--but now we know about this shipment through Manila from Iraq that happened right after the shooting.”

“This is why they tried to kill Bam Bam,” Lucy says. “They’re trying to tie up loose ends.”

Flynn crosses his arms. “What the hell is in that shipment that’s worth killing for?”

* * *

As it turns out? 

Money is worth killing for.

They find it in a shipyard full of containers. It had taken some fun stealth stuff to get past the team of soldiers guarding the container in question (Jiya couldn't help but hum the Mission Impossible theme as they went, if only to annoy Wyatt), but they got there without being detected. Jiya, Rufus, and Wyatt have a brief debate over what might be inside while she picks the lock, and then it opens.

Her jaw goes slack.

“Uh...okay, I guess money makes sense,” Rufus says in awe.

Not just money. _Cash._

Billions and billions of dollars worth of physical paper _cash._

And Jiya. Loves. Cash. 

She can't help but hug the gigantic stack of cash while utterly delighted giggles pour out of her, which earn her very strange looks from Wyatt and Rufus.

There’s something secure and constant about the physical feeling of it. When she has it, she knows she’ll be okay, even if she never spends it, just knowing that she _has it_ \--

She’s had so little in her life. Her father died before all of her baby teeth fell out, her mom ran back to Lebanon in her grief without a word, and Jiya could only handle being shunted from relative to relative before she just...left.

She honestly can say that setting her own schedule to live by on the streets was easier for her to manage than trying to adapt to the rules and standards her extended family tried to enforce on her with no regards to her neurodivergent preferences and dislikes.

Fine, yes, maybe living such an isolated lifestyle severely hindered what little ability to connect with people she might have had, but what use did she have for people when she could rely on herself? Quick and light, in and out, no mess, no fuss. Minimize the chance of further betrayal and keep her life simple (well, except for the piles and piles of jewels she keeps hidden under her pillows and mattresses for comfort).

It took a temporary mentor, a load of stolen equipment, and several years before she became the best thief of her generation. 

Jiya never felt the need to change her circumstances. She stole what she needed and lived the minimalist lifestyle that best suited her. Her favorite warehouse consists of a bed, a stuffed koala bear, a small wardrobe, her rappelling gear, and tables and tables worth of future break-in plans she’s still ironing out.

She can already tell that this whole Working With Others thing will take far more getting used to than she already anticipated.

They all just discovered a giant container full of money stolen from a shipment to Iraq and laundered through the United States government (and if that isn’t indicative of how broken the system is, Jiya doesn’t know what is), and Wyatt, much to her horror, suddenly says, "I never thought these words would come out of my mouth, but over a billion dollars? That is _way_ too much to steal."

"We're not stealing it." Lucy grins down at them. She's leaning casually against the doorway to the conference room while the rest of them sit at the table. "You're the good guys now, remember? We're giving it back."

Jiya's horror grows. Is this how people feel when their goldfish dies? "You want us to do _what?"_

Lucy winks. "You heard me." She leaves the room without another word. Again.

Ibn el _sharmouta_.

Jiya doesn’t know if she’s going to like being a “good guy.”

Then again...she _does_ get to blow something up for the last bit of this job.

She loves explosions when she isn’t the one running away from them.

It is also very fun to watch from a safe distance as Ramsey and Ellis dig their own graves in front of a crowd of reporters and a _lot_ of cameras. No more money laundering and trying to murder innocent injured soldiers for those two jackasses.

And now...well, now the five of them are handing the money off to Bam Bam, and the hospital. There’s an adorably short nurse next to him, staring in utter bafflement at the offering sitting (tantalizingly) in the truck behind Jiya.

(Would anyone notice if she grabbed several stacks? They would, wouldn't they? So she shouldn't. It would make Lucy angry, and, oddly enough, she cares about upsetting Lucy.)

“But...that…” The doctor’s hands flail wildly. “What are we supposed to _do_ with all of this?”

“Pay for Bam Bam’s rehab,” Flynn suggests.

“And, rehab for other patients,” Rufus adds on.

Jiya swallows. “You can do...whatever you want with it.” 

What’s this weird, fluttery feeling in her stomach? Bam Bam’s smiling and, hey, that...that feels nice. Did _they_ do that? Did they make him smile? 

“A group of really attractive people just dropped off a truckful of money. Doc, I don’t know about you, but I’m taking the win here. Thank you guys. So much.”

Jiya watches Wyatt and Flynn approach Bam Bam together for what she assumes might be a private moment between soldiers and figures she should pretend she can’t hear them. But she can, just for the record.

“The world doesn’t work this way,” the doctor insists, in disbelief.

Lucy approaches the young woman and takes her hand. “So change the world.”

As a group (or a team, are they still a team, Jiya isn’t sure), they move past the doc and the growing crowd of veterans staring in excitement at the cash, talking amongst themselves with the doctor about how much could go to who and what.

Jiya takes in a shuddering breath. Okay. Okay, yeah. This...this feels pretty damn good. Maybe altruism isn’t the worst thing in the world, if it puts these happy butterflies in her stomach.

“If you guys are going to walk away,” Lucy says without looking away from the display. “Now is the time.”

A long pause follows. 

“We, uh…” Wyatt clears his throat. “We could do one more, I guess.”

“...or maybe two,” Rufus tacks on.

Jiya’s fingers tap sporadically on her thigh. “I, uh...I bought dandelions. I just...they were pretty, and the shopkeeper was nice, and I thought they'd look nice…was that okay?”

It was a spur of the moment decision, which isn't off-brand for her in any way. What _was_ off-brand was that she actually paid for the flowers. What was off-brand was the fact that she thought about decorating an office she thought she would never see again.

What the hell is happening to her?

“That’s great!” Rufus smiles in her direction, and Jiya suddenly realizes that Rufus has a really great smile. She’d dare call it something like sunshine, if she were more poetic.

(Baba had been the poetic one, always calling Mom "albi," "habibti," etc. He called Jiya "hayati." There are _many_ terms of endearment in Lebanese-Arabic, covering a wide range of mushy meanings, and Jiya tries so hard not to think about how her mother ever could abandon someone Baba called “his life,” because it hurts too much, even all this time later.)

The conversation turns to Lucy, and how she gave away all her money from the first job, which is such a foreign concept to Jiya, but then again, she sees no reason to live in places with windows so who is she to judge?

“I didn’t give it _all_ away,” Lucy corrects. “I bought a new ride.”

“A station wagon probably,” Wyatt quips. “Is it electric?”

“See, this is why being a ‘good guy’ is no fun,” Rufus says.

Lucy laughs aloud and Jiya’s brow furrows. That laugh was weird. Like it came out of a choke hold and wasn’t meant to be heard.

“See, that’s what you don’t get.” She hops onto one of the _nicest_ motorcycles Jiya has ever seen, the likes of which Jiya didn’t even see back when she was a car thief. “It’s possible to be a good guy _and_ enjoy yourself.”

Next to Jiya, the boys watch, bug-eyed, as Lucy puts on her helmet, revs the motorcycle engine to life, and shoots into the distance like a rocket.

“Oh…” Flynn looks awestruck and concerned at the same time, Jiya can't help but notice (and she very rarely notices what others think).

“Should we be worried about this?” Rufus asks.

Wyatt lets out a breath and shakes his head. “Maybe?”

“I want one.” Jiya nudges Rufus. “Get me one.”

Maybe being the good guy for a while won’t be so bad at all.

(But she still wants a motorcycle.) 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I forget that other people don't know Arabic, so I did not put a translation for something Jiya said last chapter. Sorry! Anyway, here are the translations:
> 
> Khara - shit
> 
> Ibn el sharmouta - son of a bitch
> 
> albi - my heart
> 
> habibti - my love
> 
> hayati - my life
> 
> Sidenote: it is so SATISFYING to get to use my Lebanese heritage for an actual canon character like Jiya. I usually have to make OCs for my fanfics to do that.
> 
> And credit to lostininspiration for the idea of Wyatt commissioning Rufus to make the Old Flynn painting and madsthenerdygirl for helping me with the name for the security firm and with the "X Wing" line.


	4. Interlude: Food Run

It takes several weeks of suffering from an office kitchen full of only cereal, chocodiles, tortilla chips, coffee, orange soda, and alcohol before Flynn finally snaps.

He did not come into this job expecting to be the only adult willing to buy actual food, but apparently that’s how this is going to go. He exits the nearest grocery store laden with full bags of produce and supplies for substantial meals. He loads up his car and pulls onto the road.

He’s grumbling about his ridiculous teammates and their horrifying eating habits and considering possible meals he can cook and bring in for them to eat (because he can’t remember the last time he’s seen Lucy eat a full meal and apparently the rest of them are somehow surviving on coffee and junk food) when he suddenly sees Jiya, of all people, exiting what looks to be a Middle Eastern bakery with armfuls plastic bags _._

Before Flynn realizes he’s doing it, he’s already pulled over and lowered his window. “Jiya?”

She jumps and spins around, almost losing a bag of pita bread in her stumble. “What?”

“Um…” He shakes his head. “Do you need a ride? I’m heading to the office.”

He didn’t know what he had planned on saying, but offering the neurotic thief a lift to the office was definitely not planned. He doesn’t take it back though. Gray clouds are rolling lazily across the sky. Flynn can feel wetness in the air promising rain sooner rather than later. It’ll be a pain in the ass to walk through a storm with all that food, and even with all of Jiya's acrobatic skills, Flynn doubts it'll be easy to scale buildings and scaffolding with that much food weighing her down.

Jiya blinks at him, astonished. Then looks down the sidewalk. Then back at him.

She shrugs and hops into the passenger seat. Her purchases fill the car with warmth and smells of freshly baked bread. Flynn’s stomach rolls, reminding him that he hasn’t eaten since last night. As he pulls onto the road again, she pulls a container of garlic-stuffed olives out of a bag and starts eating.

He hears plastic rustling and a moment later, a torn piece of still-warm, soft pita bread dangles in front of his nose. He takes it from Jiya’s hand. “Thanks.”

He sees her shrug out of the corner of his eye as he takes a bite of the bread. “Your stomach is loud.”

Flynn has no response to that. “Did you buy all of this?” 

“Yeah.” She shrugs again. “I don’t feel right stealing from family-run places. Besides, the owners like that I speak Arabic with them...I mean, I haven’t been able to speak it with anyone in a really long time, so it’s nice, I guess.” 

She doesn’t finish the statement, but Flynn nods anyway. “So you go there a lot?” She nods, and he continues, “Is there a reason you don’t bring anything from there to the offices?”

A beat of silence follows his question. “Didn’t occur to me. Should I?”

“I can’t speak for everyone, but I’ve always enjoyed Middle Eastern food. It’s up to you. You’re not under any obligation.”

The car pulls into the parking lot for the building. Flynn is pretty sure Rufus bought the whole damn building just for the Lifeboat Offices, which seems like overkill, but hey, Flynn’s not in charge. He would not want to be the poor sucker in charge of these people. He still can’t believe Lucy even agreed to it in the first place, honestly. 

“Does this mean you want my olives?”

Flynn chuckles. “If you don’t want to share them, then you don’t have to.”

When the two of them arrive at the offices laden with their purchases, Rufus is there, making coffee in the kitchen.

“Oh my God, that smells _amazing,”_ Rufus moans. “Is that bread?”

“And olives and braided cheese and za’atar and akawi and baklava,” Jiya lists off. She lifts her bags onto the counter “I was going to take it all to my place.”

“You were going to eat all of this on your own?” Rufus sticks most of his head into one of the bags and inhales deep enough to crinkle the plastic. “Oh man, I can’t remember the last time I’ve had pita bread.”

Flynn puts his grocery store items into the refrigerator. “Syria, 2010. Arguably the best meal I ever had overseas.”

“Well then.” Rufus looks questioningly at Jiya. When she nods, he pulls out a bag of pita. “We can eat like royalty while Lucy and I brief you about the next job.”

“Another one, already?” Flynn puts away a package of yogurt. “What is it this time?”

“Something about a mafia boss framing an innocent man and not compensating the family as promised,” Rufus lists off as he heads for the conference room. “I’m sure Lucy will have more details at the meeting.”

Flynn stares at the spot Rufus vacated. He shakes his head. “This is the weirdest job I’ve ever signed on for.”

“Eh,” Jiya mumbles around a mouthful of akawi. “I’ve done weirder.”

_“Really?”_

“Morning, everyone.” Wyatt enters the kitchen with a yawn. He stops in his tracks, eyes widening. “Do I smell pita and za’atar?”

“Among other things,” Flynn confirms.

Wyatt almost leaps for the counter before stopping again. He looks at Jiya and points at the container with the za’atar. “Can I?”

Jiya stares back at him for several beats, contemplating. “Okay, sure.”

Wyatt sighs in relief and pulls out the piece of za’atar. “This will _so_ be worth picking all the sesame seeds out of my teeth later.”

“Well, you can enjoy that while we go get debriefed on the mafia boss we’re about to target,” Flynn comments on his way out of the room, Jiya close behind him with her container of olives. 

Wyatt pauses, za’atar halfway to his mouth. “We’re doing _what_ now?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lesson we have learned here is that I should not write when I'm craving pita bread. There is nothing like freshly baked pita. If anyone would like information about the other foods mentioned here, please say so! 
> 
> Also, I would still like a beta for this fic, so if anyone who is both a Leverage and Timeless fan is interested and has the time to do so, let me know!


	5. The Flying High Job

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Certain characters and events are adapted from the fan-made Timeless Season 3, particularly the episode Notorious RBG, same as the first chapter with the character Michael Temple. For those of you who have not found or read the Timeless Season 3 blog and episodes on tumblr, I strongly encourage you to do so. It's the Season 3 the characters and fans all deserved and it restored my faith in the fandom after the Abomination We Don't Speak Of. And when you do, come scream with me about it.

Rufus is more than a little concerned about what the hell is up with Lucy these days.

These jobs were supposed to be straightforward. Steal from the bad guy, give back and then some to the client that got ripped off. Point A to Point B, steal the money, gloat, help the client, so long and thanks for all the fish.

But _no_. Each of these jobs keeps turning into a statement. A _big_ statement. They didn’t just steal money from the mafia boss who framed an innocent man, they got the mafia boss arrested and cleared the client’s name too. They didn’t just steal from those contractors who made billions of dollars worth of profits off of victims of natural disasters, Lucy decided the team had to take down the _entire company_ that was _already_ under investigation from the authorities and help the other victims. (Speaking of the latter, he hopes he NEVER has to deal with a corpse again, the sound of a needle penetrating bone and brain tissue is never going to leave his nightmares.)

Not that any of this was bad on its own, not at all, but it was like jumping from a ship after it set sail to swim to the significantly less-safe ship five docks over because it had more hors d’oeuvres. They almost didn’t get what was needed for the clients who hired them in the first place, nearly got arrested, and they even ended up _paying the mark_ in the one job just to keep the con going. 

Did it all work out in the end? Sure, yes. The marks lost their homes, their businesses, and all their money, which was honestly everything they deserved. The clients ended up getting what they asked for and so much more.

Did it also affect Rufus’s trust in Lucy and make him question just how intensely she was getting involved in this damn crusade? Absolutely.

But Rufus doesn’t say any of that to the rest of the team because he’s a professional and he doesn’t gossip (too much, anyway). He sure as hell is thinking it though. He’s pretty sure Jiya and Wyatt are thinking it too. He has no idea _what_ Flynn thinks about this whole situation, but he also isn’t sure Flynn can see the danger with his obvious doe-eyes for Lucy (and isn’t _that_ a Whole Thing that will probably get old really fast).

They signed up to play Robin Hood, but not on this scale. This is the kind of thing that could get them killed if they aren’t careful.

Rufus thinks all of this as he gets his set up ready for their next job.

They have been hired to expose a company called FertiLIFE for knowingly allowing their toxic fertilizers to contaminate local water systems and causing more than a few deaths as a result. It’s pretty awful. It was even worse listening to their newest clients talk about the CEO’s nonchalance over the death of their child.

(Rufus doesn’t know how Flynn and Lucy manage these client meetings. Rufus has never been a father, but he still has his brother, and he gets misty-eyed every time they get clients with dead kids. Does Flynn think of his daughter during those meetings? Does Lucy think of her sister?)

Rufus is at the offices while the rest of the team breaks into FertiLIFE’s headquarters. He really needs to get a van. He’s uneasy about being so far away from the team, and they could use a vehicle for getaways anyway.

If you ask Rufus, Flynn has way too much fun playing the obnoxious drunk non-English speaking foreigner with the goal to fluster his targets. In this case, the targets are the guards at the front desk who so far have not noticed Jiya, Lucy, and Wyatt enter and ascend the building because Flynn is shouting in Russian and broken English about a cat and vodka.

Rufus hacks into the system and cracks the lockdown on the elevators so the team can get a ride up to the target floor. He hurries to break the encryptions on the CEO’s computer so Jiya can download the information as fast as possible while Wyatt flips through the paper files in the cabinets.

“Any luck, so far?” he asks.

“If you mean have I found any paper trail proving that FertiLIFE knew about the risk with their fertilizers leaking into the water supply, then the answer is ‘no,’” Wyatt mutters into the comm. “What about the computers?”

“Not so far,” Lucy reports.

“Well, hurry it up, I think I hear someone coming.”

Rufus chokes on his bottle of orange soda. He hears a mad scuffle over the comms.

“Jiya! Turn off the computer and hide!” Lucy hisses.

“I’m almost done!”

“Jiya!”

Rufus swears and hacks into the cameras to get a look at their unexpected visitor, silently praying that Jiya can work her Thief Magic and get away in time. “Guys. It’s Gunther.”

* * *

“We’re going to get slammed when those EPA subpoenas are executed. If I don’t make a move, I’ll lose the company. It’s all on that Cayman’s flight! All the assets, everything. Yes, the 12-09, it takes off in an hour. I need someone I trust to keep an eye on this for me. So tell me right now, are you that person or not?”

Lucy holds her breath until Gerald Gunther, CEO of the company, gets to his desk, completely caught up in his phone call. She crab-walks out of the office into the copy room without being detected. When no alarms go off, she realizes that Jiya must have hidden too, although Lucy has no idea where or even _how_. 

She lets out a long sigh, long enough to make her lungs burn with relief and strain, and starts thinking up a new plan. “Rufus?”

“Yeah, yeah, I found the flight he mentioned. The guy’s liquidating his assets.”

“Firewalling.” Lucy swears quietly. “He’s going to bankrupt the Agricultural division--”

“If that division doesn’t exist, it’ll become a mess of credit--”

“And our clients lose any chance of winning their civil suit.” Lucy meets Wyatt by the door leading back to the hallway. “We need to get on that plane.”

“Lucy, wait,” Wyatt finally interjects. “All he said is that the flight leaves in an hour, the airport is across town, even if the traffic is good there is no way we can--”

“These bastards killed _children_ , Wyatt,” Lucy hisses. Righteous fury burns in her chest like a forest fire, all-consuming and terrible. It’s not right, none of it is _right,_ and she’ll be damned if she lets this go unanswered. “A _lot_ of children, and they know damn well what they’ve done. We are _not_ letting them get away with it, so we are getting on that damn flight, even if we have to break multiple traffic laws to do so, do you understand me?”

Wyatt stares her down, frustrated uncertainty in his gaze. For all his pushback and doubts and occasional over-the-top macho-ness, Lucy knows for a fact that when it comes down to the wire, he’ll listen to her. He’s too much of a soldier _not_ to follow orders.

(It’s part of the reason he’s so haunted now, she imagines. He’s too good at following orders, even morally gray ones. She’s sure that quality probably bit him in the ass when he started working freelance, or even when he was still in the military.)

She watches him bite back a hundred words and arguments before nodding. “Alright then.”

She nods back. When she opens the door, her and Wyatt jump at the sight of Jiya just standing in the hallway with a look of impatience.

“Let’s hurry it up, shall we?” 

As Jiya turns and walks away, Wyatt points after her then back inside the office they just left. “How the hell did she--?”

“I don’t even ask anymore,” Lucy says with a shake of her head. Her theory about Jiya being a ghost has just gained traction again. “Rufus, can you get us an elevator ride back down?”

“Of course I can, who do you think I am?”

The trio gets into the elevator and Lucy finally tunes back in to Flynn’s end of the comm, where it sounds as if he’s entertaining the guards by juggling their paperweights. What the hell?

“Alright, Jiya, Wyatt, as soon as the elevator door opens, run out screaming about a giant rodent chasing after us.”

“Wait, _that’s_ your escape plan? Lucy, no, that’ll never work--!”

“Too late, we’re here, get with the program, Wyatt!” Jiya interrupts as she tears out of the elevator with Lucy with a scream worthy of the most B-rated horror film. 

Lucy grabs Flynn’s arm as she passes him while yelling, with exaggerated terror, “It’s right behind us, save yourselves!” 

“It’s big and it’s furry and it’s chasing us! Get down!” Jiya shrieks. Wyatt doesn’t bother with yelling, he just ducks his head and runs.

Flynn drops the paperweights as he shifts her grip to hold her hand on the way to the entrance.

The guards leap into position with their guns, searching frantically for whatever horrifying creature has just been described and utterly distracted as the team tears out of the building with all the speed of a people on the run.

“What the hell is going on?” Flynn demands. “I thought we were just gathering intel?”

“I’ll explain in the car,” Lucy answers, “but right now, we have a flight to catch.”

* * *

“Rufus, we need those tickets, fast!” 

“I’m working on it, Lucy. Who calls dibs on the two first class seats?”

“Flynn and I can take those.” 

“Oh come _on!”_

“Wyatt,” Lucy says in a warning tone as they ascend the escalator into the airport.

“What IDs do you have?” Rufus asks over Wyatt’s grumbling about coach seats.

Lucy digs through the collection of IDs Rufus made for her (and the rest of the team). “Um...I’ve got Kyle Pratt, Grace Marshall, Elaine Striker--”

“Oh, here,” Flynn interjects, pulling out an ID from his own collection. “I’ve got a Ted Striker.”

“Alrighty!” The sound of the clicking keyboard reverberates in the earpiece before Rufus continues, “I now pronounce you husband and wife! Enjoy the honeymoon, crazy kids!”

Lucy rolls her eyes as Flynn hands over faux wedding rings to help sell the bit. 

“Don’t worry about me, Rufus,” Wyatt says. “I’ve got an Air Marshal badge, I don’t need a ticket.”

“What if there’s an Air Marshall already on the plane?” Jiya asks.

“There’s only one Air Marshall per every 100 flights.”

“...I know that’s good for you guys, but that’s very unsettling trivia for me.” Rufus makes a shuddering sound.

Lucy feels the startings of her anxiety about being on a plane kick in and does her damnedest to crush it. “Okay, let’s get one more authority figure. Jiya, think you can swipe a flight attendant uniform?”

The answer to that: yes. Yes, Jiya can. Lucy decides to just cross her fingers and hope there won’t be any trouble with this particular plane having an Arab stewardess. It’s been almost twenty years since 9/11, but that doesn’t stop airports from profiling and just being the Worst in general towards the Middle Eastern population of North America.

Once they all arrive at security, Lucy realizes that she probably should have actually examined the luggage she swiped from Lost and Found before they got to this point.

Flynn stares at the BDSM and various other sex kink equipment in the suitcase they’re sharing with abject horror. He switches back to her, his face a picture-perfect embodiment of “WTF.”

Lucy shrugs as she puts her shoes back on. “We needed luggage,” she whispers to him.

“Lucy,” he hisses back as he slips back into his coat, “why didn’t you at least check before--”

“We’re in a hurry!” She glances at the items the security guy is holding up in question. “Oh, the cuffs are his, the whip’s mine.”

Flynn turns beet red, slams the suitcase shut, and hurries away. Lucy winks at the equally red-faced security guy. “It’s our second honeymoon!”

* * *

Meanwhile, back at Lifeboat HQ, Rufus has found himself with an empty docket. Not much he can do until they’re on the plane, so he explores a bit, and finds himself in Lucy’s office. He finds the mini-fridge under her desk. Hidden behind the cans and bottles of beer and liquor is a package of baklava. “Oh, _hell_ yeah, I am _starving.”_

Since Jiya’s surprise delivery several weeks ago, he’s been eating more Middle Eastern food than he has in his entire life, and honestly, he can’t complain. But the office has been short on baklava for several days now and he’s craving _big time._

He pulls out the container and takes a single bite just as he hears Lucy call him again. He chokes on the pistachio pieces and hurries to speak around the treat. “Yes?”

“Are you _eating?_ In _my_ office?”

“...no?” He swallows the baklava piece whole, wincing at the lump jutting at his throat, and continues, “I am here, in _my_ office, on stand-by, waiting to help you guys.”

“No need to be on stand-by anymore. I need you to go back to FertiLIFE.”

“What? Why? The assets are on the plane. We grab the money, give it to the client, and they don’t even need to finish the lawsuit, right?”

“Rufus, _we_ are taking this company down. I’m not leaving this in the hands of the law, so I need you to finish what we started. Find the leak that Gunther’s so worried about. Got it?”

Rufus resists the urge to roll his eyes. Here they go again, making a statement, and turning this into something really big. But, once again, he’s willing to do it. If for no one else, at least for the parents grieving over their child’s wrongful death. “I’ve got you.” He picks up another piece of baklava.

“Oh, and Rufus?”

“Yeah?”

“When I get back, you better have replaced my baklava stash.”

Rufus freezes, the piece halfway to his mouth, for two reasons. 

One, because Lucy used the pronunciation Jiya uses. Rufus hadn’t known this, but apparently the Lebanese pronounce baklava, from what he can tell, like “beht-LAY-wee” as opposed to everyone Rufus has ever met who just pronounces it how it looks in English writing. He hasn’t quite gotten the hang of saying it that way (Jiya is awkward enough around the rest of them without worrying about people mocking or ignoring what little cultural heritage she’s been able to maintain after years of isolation), but Flynn and Wyatt picked it right up, probably from their time in the Middle East. He didn’t realize until now that he’d never heard Lucy talk about baklava out loud. Then again, it’s been an unspoken Thing that Flynn will hand off half of whatever stash of baklava Jiya brings to Lucy, and Lucy will take it without bothering with some pointless attitude about her eating habits (which, Rufus can attest to, have been nonexistent since they bought the offices). Maybe it shouldn’t have surprised Rufus this much.

Two, how the hell did she _know?_ Did she sense a disturbance in the Force?

“Uh...got it, Lucy.”

* * *

Once they all arrive on the plane, Lucy and Flynn head to first class while Wyatt moves to coach and Jiya starts chatting (with limited success) with her fellow flight attendant. Lucy’s attempts to keep her breathing regular and _not_ notice the metal walls are closing in around her are only marginally working.

“I should really help Jiya with her people skills,” Flynn mutters into his hand. “Eventually she’s going to need to grift when the situation calls for it.” 

Lucy bites back a smile at the thought of Jiya actually learning how to interact with fellow human beings who aren’t criminals. “You’re welcome to try.” 

He steals a brief glance at her. “You going to be alright?”

She sucks in a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “Can’t let claustrophobia get in the way of the job. I’ll manage.”

Flynn makes a humming sound as if he doesn’t quite buy her statement, and she would be offended if he wasn’t half-right. 

Lucy fiddles with the faux wedding ring on her finger. She can’t help but remember her doomed engagement to Noah and compare the lack of passion in that relationship to how fluttery she feels beside Flynn right now. What is she, fourteen? She and Flynn have faked marriages for past jobs, why does it keep hitting her like this?

 _It’s just a con, Lucy. Keep your head in the game._

She clears her throat and looks at Flynn. He’s playing this particular job without glasses, so she has an unfiltered look into his almost-green eyes. It mostly helps to keep her from thinking about being stuck in a long tube of metal with no way out. “Anyway, if we’re playing a happy family couple for the next few hours, we’ll need more backstory, don’t you think?”

Flynn looks as though he’s trying to bite back a grin. “We can just use our own history. Nothing too complicated.”

“Yeah, sure. So, what, we got married the day we met?”

“That works. That means we’ve been married for seven years.”

Lucy’s brow furrows. “Sixteen.”

Flynn blinks at her. “You...no, seven years.” 

“No, sixteen.”

“The blimp explosion was _not_ sixteen years ago, Lucy.”

She is absolutely not going to get distracted from being right just because she loves how he says her name (but it’s a close thing). “I’m not referring to the blimp explosion, Flynn.”

Flynn’s eyes narrow then widen. “Wait, you don’t mean--”

“Yeah, I do!”

“You _count_ that?”

“You _don’t?”_

“Of course not, I didn’t even know your name!!”

“Flynn, you saved my life, I’d say that counts--”

Their debate is interrupted by Jiya delivering the inflight takeoff announcement. Well, _attempting_ to deliver the announcement.

“Place the mask over your mouth and nose and breathe normally. In the event of a water landing, your seat cushion can be used as a flotation device. But, let’s face it, if this thing goes down in the water, it is far more likely that the impact will kill you.”

“Jesus Christ,” Wyatt mutters in horror. Lucy buries her face in her hands as a wave of nausea hits her like a damn truck.

“Please take a moment to locate the nearest emergency exits, because if this plane’s on fire, you’re going to want to get out _quick!_ Jet fuel burns at over a thousand degrees. That’s hot, folks!”

Lucy would laugh if she didn’t once again feel as if her lungs were going to be crushed. “Maybe I should have had Wyatt play the flight attendant.”

Flynn smothers a chuckle before schooling his features. “Well, now that we’re here, what’s the plan?”

“We need to figure out what it is exactly that we’re looking for and who’s got it, then we have to get it off the plane, somehow, without anyone noticing, and we have to do all of that before the plane lands in the next…” Lucy checks the clock on her phone, “...five and a half hours.”

Flynn reaches for one of the in-flight magazines. “Shouldn’t be too hard.”

“Please don’t say that,” Wyatt groans. “Now we’re jinxed.”

“Didn’t think you believed in jinxes, Wyatt.”

“Surprise, surprise, there’s something you don’t know about me, ass-hat.”

“Oh, so we’re talking about your ass now?”

Lucy senses this is going to turn into another segment of Flynn not-so-low-key teasing/flirting with Wyatt while Wyatt blusters angrily the whole time, so she decides to nip that in the bud just as the plane starts taking off. “Boys, not now.”

“Sorry, Lucy,” Flynn apologizes. 

“Won’t happen again,” Wyatt follows up.

She doubts that, but she’ll accept it for now. 

Once the plane is in the air, Lucy takes a moment to order some orange juice with a splash of vodka (and completely ignores Flynn’s not-at-all-subtle disapproving look while doing so, because alcohol is going to be the only way she doesn’t crumble into a puddle of anxiety mid-flight). Lucy hears Jiya snap at a flight-nervous passenger who keeps interrupting Jiya’s attempts to be a fake flight attendant in order to beg for ginger ale, and a thought occurs to her. “How are the earbuds still working in the air?”

“Because I’m just that good,” Rufus responds. “I hacked into the airplane’s wi-fi and piggybacked our signal onto it. This should keep our communications tethered as long as you’re on this side of the hemisphere. Now, if you’ll excuse me for a moment, I’m about to head into FertiLIFE.”

“What’s your plan? Are you sure you don’t need Jiya to walk you--?”

Rufus clears his throat. “Don’t bother Jiya, I’ve got this, one hundred percent!” A moment later, under his breath, she hears him mutter, “Sixty, maybe.”

“Have fun storming the castle!” Jiya chimes in gleefully.

If Jiya keeps up the pop culture references, Lucy thinks, Rufus may just buy an engagement ring.

* * *

Never underestimate an English-only speaker’s awkwardness to deal with someone who doesn’t speak English. Sure, Rufus’s grasp of Spanish is limited to what he remembers from learning all the songs in _Coco_ and what he learned in classrooms, but it flusters the security guy at the desk long enough to get him inside the building as a maintenance guy.

(Rufus would credit the Lost in Translation idea to Flynn if he didn’t think Flynn’s ego would grow at the praise.)

While he changes into a suit, he listens in as the rest of the team makes their gameplan on the plane and starts slyly going through the carry-on luggage of their possible suspects to find the assets. Well, some of them are managing to be sly. Rufus hears Wyatt intimidate a passenger into ignoring whatever Wyatt is doing, and then, of course, there’s Jiya with the Ginger Ale Lady.

“You’ve had two cans already.”

“I know, but it makes me feel better, even if I know it doesn’t work--”

She sighs and he hears a shuffle as she moves. “Look, flying isn’t all that scary when you think about it. There are a lot more likely ways to die than on a plane.”

Uh-oh, Rufus thinks. He steps into the elevator to the floor Gunther’s office is on.

“There’s a car crash, house fire, electrocution, drowning, autoerotique asphyxiation. The fact is, lady, death haunts us every day. No matter where we are! So what’s the point in worrying?” Jiya concludes with an oddly chipper tone.

“...Jiya,” Lucy begins in a strained whisper, “the next time you’re trying to reassure someone, maybe don’t list all the other ways they can die on an airplane. Especially if you have a teammate who hates flying listening in.”

Jiya doesn’t answer immediately. “...but it’s true? Death by plane crash is statistically a very unlikely way to die.”

“I mean,” Rufus coughs, “it wasn’t _that_ bad…I guess?” He looks around the offices and break room for ideas on how he can get Gunther out of his office and just _barely_ restrains himself from joining in a conversation between two coworkers about _World of Warcraft._

(Does Jiya play World of Warcraft? She likes sci-fi movies, maybe she likes fantasy too? He should ask. Maybe they can play together. If she’s into videogames. What _does_ she do in her free time, anyway? If nothing else, they can maybe watch _Princess Bride_ together.)

“Thank you, Rufus, I thought I handled that perfectly!”

His brain just about short-circuits at the delight in her tone, even if that absolutely was _not_ what he said, just as he catches sight of some kind of statistical graphs in the trash bin and hears the employees shift from online gaming to whatever is going on in the international market and gets an idea. He swipes a laptop from somebody’s office, creates a quick slideshow about the U.S. Market Share, before making his next move.

He goes right up to Gunther’s office, opens the door, and announces, “The meeting’s starting, sir!”

“Wait, what? What meeting?!”

But Rufus is already halfway down the hall to get to the conference room. He stops halfway to make the same announcement into various offices and the break room.

Once everyone, including Gunther, files into the conference room, he improvises his presentation, but, somehow, manages to convince the entire table that he knows what the hell he’s talking about.

He fakes a bathroom emergency ten minutes in (nobody wants to ask too many questions about what happens when someone eats seafood burritos), and manages to shove the rest of the presentation onto another hapless employee.

Once he’s in Gunther’s office, he gets to work on the bastard’s computer.

* * *

Lucy, Flynn, and Jiya regroup in the back room once they finish their rounds while Wyatt tunes in from coach.

“So, we have officially found a box full of euros, pouch of uncut diamonds, and a stolen Stradivarius, which I’ve never seen before, let alone stolen, so can I please--”

“Jiya, don’t steal the stolen Stradivarius.” Lucy pinches the bridge of her nose. “This is ridiculous. The four of us just found millions of dollars of merchandise and _none of it_ belongs to FertiLIFE.”

Flynn shrugs. “It’s the Cayman Islands, Lucy. Basically a holiday getaway for thieves.”

“I know, I know, go for the tan, stay for the tax shelter, but _still._ We’re on a time table, couldn’t it be a little more obvious?”

“I think I’ve found something,” Rufus reports from Gunther’s office. “I did a cross check of the flight passenger manifest with FertiLIFE’s company roster and got two hits: Jared Abrahamsen, head of security, ex-Navy Seal, has been with the company for six years, and J. R. Bader, an accountant/law student who’s been with the company for about ten months. For some reason, they aren’t seated together. Security guy is in first class and the accountant is in coach.”

Lucy purses her lips. “Could it be a coincidence that they’re both on this flight?”

“Nope. Both seats were paid by the same corporate credit card at the same time.”

“Okay, so we’ll divide and conquer. Flynn and I can check out Abrahamsen and Jiya, you stick with Bader in coach.”

Flynn suddenly turns a beguiling smile onto her. “Lucy, if we could return to Jiya’s earlier suggestion--”

“We’re not stealing the Stradivarius.”

He puts his hands up defensively. “Worth a shot.”

“Okay,” Rufus interrupts, “you guys should be getting their photos any minute now.”

Lucy hears her phone ding and checks the image of a lovely young brunette with bright eyes and another fairly basic white brown-haired man. She hands her phone to Flynn and then Jiya takes it. A moment later, Jiya’s eyes widen. “Khara.”

“What is it?”

Jiya tosses the phone back to Lucy. “Nothing. If you’ll excuse me, I need to--” She stands and leaves without finishing her sentence.

Flynn brow furrows as he exchanges a confused look with Lucy. “The hell was that about?”

“No clue, but we need to go talk to Abrahamsen. Wanna play the Dissatisfied Spouse Game?”

He chuckles and holds his hand out for her to take as they rise into a standing position. “Well, we’ve been married for seven years, there’s bound to be some conflict--”

“No, we’ve been married for _sixteen_ years--”

“Lucy, no, I told you that doesn’t count--”

“And I disagree--”

* * *

It’s a good thing Jiya is very good at compartmentalizing, otherwise Lucy and Flynn’s weird banter would distract her from making nice with Ginger Ale Lady. Or, as Jiya learned thirty seconds ago, J.R. Bader, the FertiLIFE Accountant who hates flying.

Jiya brings a pillow and another ginger ale (which she is graciously thanked for) and actually puts in an effort to talk with this lady. “So, if you hate flying, what are you doing here?”

“Business,” Bader responds, with a touch of bitterness. “For FertiLIFE Industries.”

“A business trip to the Caymans, that’s uh...interesting.” Jiya presses her lips together. How do people make faces when they talk to strangers? “I thought I heard someone else say they were with FertiLIFE too. A Jared something, maybe?”

Bader seems surprised to hear this. “I didn’t think anyone else was coming, I wasn’t told about it. Then again,” her face shutters with something almost angry, and it’s oddly dissonant with the uncomfortable lady Jiya’s been dealing with the entire flight, “I’m not told very much about what’s going on.”

Jiya doesn’t have a response to that, so she gets up and leaves.

Interesting. Very...interesting.

* * *

While Flynn chats up Abrahamsen about the troubles of married life, Lucy checks back in with Rufus.

“What else have you got?”

“I hacked into Abrahamsen’s phone records. He called Gunther right before takeoff, so our current theory fits…”

“I hear a ‘but’ coming?”

“But...I think there’s something up with this accountant. I’m outside of her office right now and, uh...some guys are cleaning it out, putting her stuff in boxes. This woman probably knows more than she’s supposed to.”

Lucy considers that, and a new, darker theory forms. “We thought that the assets Gunther had on the flight was currency. What if...what if it isn’t? What if it’s a person?”

Rufus’s voice takes on a note of horror. “You don’t mean…?”

“J. R. Bader is the asset. They’re going to kill her.”

* * *

It takes quite a bit of back and forth before the team decides that, yes, they should tell Mrs. Bader about the target on her back and figure out exactly what she knows about FertiLIFE to earn said target. Despite Jiya’s offer, Wyatt is selected to break the news because, for one, he has an Air Marshall badge to help convince the woman, and also because Jiya possesses all the tact of an half-drunk bull.

Wyatt’s felt a lot like a bump on a log for this job. He better get to knock out at least one person before it’s done. But that’s a complaint for later. He finds Bader sitting anxiously in her seat, flashes his badge as subtly as possible, and escorts her to the back room of first class.

Once they both settle in, Wyatt starts with the questioning. “I need you to tell me about FertiLIFE, and your boss. You work for Gunther, right? He sent you on this trip?”

Bader gives him a measuring look before nodding. “Yes. After I noticed accounting irregularities in our Agricultural Chemistry Division.”

“Irregularities?”

“Safety studies. The company launched a new fertilizer last year, and the checks were cut, but there was no evidence that the studies had actually taken place, and the payments to the researchers were…” Bader gives him another look, “well, _abnormally_ large.”

Oh. Oh man.

“Ask her if she spoke to her boss about this,” Lucy says over the earbud. Wyatt obeys.

Bader nods. “He tried to assure me that it was a process error, and sent me to audit the off-shore accounts and correct it.”

Wyatt’s brow furrows. “You don’t sound like you believe that.”

She bites her lip and looks around. “The truth is, I’m pretty sure those researchers were bribed, and that Gunther is trying to allay my suspicions.”

“So why come anyway?”

“I figured if I could find evidence in the Caymans, play a long game maybe, then I could turn him in once I had more to nail him with.”

Wyatt doesn’t think he’s ever met anyone so well-intentioned and just as in over her head. (He tries deliberately not to think of Lucy.)

“Ma’am, you’re right,” Wyatt finally confesses. “Those were bribes for the researchers so they wouldn’t testify in the lawsuit.”

“What?!” Bader’s eyes widen. “How the hell do you know that? What--”

Jiya pops in-between the two of them without warning with a canned drink in her hand. “There’s a guy in first class who wants to kill you.” She pops the can open and hands it to a shell-shocked Bader. “Have another ginger ale!” she tacks on cheerfully before disappearing again.

“Jiya! _Really?!”_ Wyatt growls. He turns back to a now-trembling Bader. “Uh…” He shakes his head. “Look, you’re going to be okay. We won’t let anything happen to you.”

She looks at him and Wyatt suddenly realizes that for all her obvious nerves, this woman is a lot braver than she appears to be. “Can you promise that?”

“It’s what we do.”

“I think it’s time we introduce you to Mr. Abrahamsen,” Lucy says to Wyatt as Flynn comes to comfort Bader. Wyatt gets up and joins her around the corner. “Meanwhile, we need Rufus to grab Gunther’s hard drive and get out of FertiLIFE.”

“You need Rufus to do _what?”_ the man in question hisses. “I barely got him out of there last time, what do you expect me to do this time? Dress in drag and do the hula?”

“Not your best metaphor,” Wyatt comments.

“Rufus, you’re smart,” Lucy placates in a tone allowing no room for further argument. “You’ve gotten this far, I’m sure you can think of something.”

* * *

As Rufus fixes the party hat on his head, he thinks that he should fake his birthday more often, if it means getting more cake. 

Meanwhile, while he sneaks back into Gunther’s office, he listens in as Abrahamsen is lured out of his seat so that Wyatt can knock the guy out and lock him in the airplane restroom. A series of grunts and landed hits echoes through the earbuds before it goes silent. Then a toilet flushes.

“Really, man?”

“Shut up, I’m keeping cover,” Wyatt grumbles. 

The entire team meets up in the back of first class again, and Rufus finds...more concerning information to deliver that he collected from a laptop he found in a really cool hidden compartment in the desk.

“Guys, before the flight, Gunther made a stock payment on a fund transfer to Jared Abrahamsen.”

“Wait, the guy we just took out?” Jiya questions.

“Hey!”

“Fine, the guy _Wyatt_ just took out?”

“Yeah, and according to some other calls he made, he spoke directly to guys in the Caymans.”

“But Abrahamsen’s head of security. Why talk directly to those guys?” Wyatt points out.

Lucy makes a humming sound. “So they aren’t just knocking off Bader, Gunther wants Abrahamsen gone too. Take out the evidence, and the guy in charge of getting rid of it.”

“I don’t buy that,” Wyatt says. “Abrahamsen was a professional. I mean, he used a ceramic knife to get through customs? He’d sniff out anyone coming for him. In order for that to work...” He trails off.

“What?” Rufus prompts. 

“They’d take them out in transit,” Flynn finishes. “Right?”

“Right,” Wyatt agrees begrudgingly.

“You mean, they’re going to take down the plane? _This_ plane? The one we’re on right now?” Lucy confirms, a note of hysteria in her voice.

“Well…” Rufus coughs. “It sucks to be you guys right now.”

* * *

The sense of urgency kicks up by a factor of fifty.

Jiya breaks into the cargo hold to find out if there’s a bomb hidden in the luggage, Lucy goes to talk to Bader again, and Flynn and Wyatt charge for the bathroom to see the unconscious Abrahamsen.

But they can’t wake the bastard up in order to ask if he knows anything about how FertiLIFE plans to take down the plane. 

Flynn shakes the man several times and turns a frustrated look at Wyatt, who shrugs. “My job is to knock people out so they _stay_ knocked out, what do you want from me?”

For the love of God, _this_ is why Flynn stopped playing basic soldier years ago. The military is quite adept at killing any sense of imagination for situations. He searches Abrahamsen’s pockets for luggage tags, Wyatt swipes the ceramic knife, and they leave the bathroom. 

“We hope the luggage reveals something,” Lucy says. She...she doesn’t sound good. A plane crash is probably another worst nightmare come to life and she’s barely kept it together for the flight.

Flynn wants nothing more than to reassure her that they’ll be fine, but there isn’t exactly time for promises he has no control over, so instead he and Wyatt hold off until they hear from Jiya.

* * *

Jiya’s flashlight scans through the contents of Bader’s luggage swiftly, cutting through the darkness of the cargo hold. Should she be concerned that it’s this easy to steal someone’s luggage? “Bader’s suitcase doesn’t have anything that looks like a bomb, and neither does Abrahamsen’s.”

“Jiya, do you have your phone?” Rufus suddenly asks. “I think I can try something.”

“What are you thinking?”

With Rufus’s direction, she finds the control panel to the plane’s electrical system and manages to connect him to the systems remotely. The bright side of being in a cargo hold: finding an adapter is as easy as stealing a diamond from a French national bank.

“So you’re looking at the plan’s system from over 3,000 miles away? Impressive.”

Rufus can do a lot of really impressive things, Jiya thinks. But every time she tells him that, he acts...weird. Is he scared of her? She doesn’t think she likes that.

Like now, he’s spluttering over the earbud, saying things like, “It’s no big deal,” (except it is) and “Any hacker can do this,” (probably, but not this fast) and she doesn’t know why he won’t just take the compliment.

He cuts off abruptly. “Uh, Jiya? There was just an electrical spike. Do you see anything that looks like it would interfere with the system?”

Jiya scans the cables and wiring with her flashlight until she sees some small black device attached to one. “I think…I think there’s something tapping into one of the conduits.”

“Jiya….is that device anywhere near an orange box?”

Jiya can admit that she’s not great with telling how people are feeling, but the sudden fear in Rufus’s voice definitely sends her hackles up. She looks down and sees a neon orange box with “FLIGHT RECORDER DO NOT OPEN” written in big letters and confirms his question.

Rufus lets off a long string of curses that would make even Jiya’s jiddo blush (and he had a mouth dirtier than a sewer rat). “Oh God, Lucy, they tapped into the black box.”

“No, it’s orange,” Jiya corrects.

“The black box _is_ orange, it makes it easier to find in the debris.”

“Oh.” The implication hits her a moment later. “ _Oh_. Oh, no.”

“They hacked the flight’s computer, that means they have access to the system and they can spoof the black box data all at the same time--”

“And no one would know that the plane was sabotaged,” Jiya concludes. “That’s...that’s not good.”

“Yeah, no _shit_ ,” Rufus responds hysterically.

A weird static noise suddenly catches Jiya’s attention and she sees several strings of very concerning code appear on the small flight computer screen.

“Guys,” she reports with no small level of freaking out, “I think we’re out of time.”

* * *

Flynn and Wyatt burst into the cockpit. Wyatt flashes his badge and shouts over the protests of the pilots, “Listen, I’m a U.S. Air Marshall and this is Ted Striker, he’s an engineer and consultant for the TSA and we’ve got a big--”

The plane jerks and dips down and Flynn grabs hold of a ledge on the wall to keep from landing on the floor. 

“The auto-pilot’s disengaged itself!” the pilot yells. “We’re losing altitude!”

“Listen,” Flynn shouts back, “someone has hacked into the navigation system, they’re trying to bring the plane down!” He exchanges a look with Wyatt and decides, screw subtlety, and tunes into the earbud in clear view of the pilots. “Rufus! We need you!”

“I-I don’t know what I can do!” Rufus’s anxious voice does nothing for the lurch in Flynn’s stomach. He starts rambling through what he could _try_ and what he _can’t_ do and Google can only help with his lack of knowledge about aeronautic engineering so much in an urgent situation like this and this is _way beyond him--_

“Rufus,” Lucy finally interrupts, though she sounds as if she’s three seconds away from a total breakdown, “you’ve got this. You’re the only one who can pull something like this off. I trust you, okay?”

“Rufus, please, this is _not_ how I want to die,” Jiya chimes in. “I know you can do this.”

There’s a horrifying silence on the other end of the comm, and the roaring of the declining plane is too loud in Flynn’s ears, when _finally,_ Rufus responds, “Okay. Okay, you’re right. It's just the Kessel Run in twelve parsecs, no big deal, I've _got this._ ”

* * *

Lucy belts herself into the nearest empty seat in first class, helpless and utterly overwhelmed by nausea and fear, while Rufus starts issuing orders to Jiya and Flynn.

The thing is...she’s terrified. But not in the way she expected. 

She’s terrified of the metal of the plane crushing her, she terrified that the team won’t make it, she’s terrified that FertiLIFE is about to get away with even more murder.

But dying?

Dying, oddly enough, doesn’t seem like the worst thing right now. She’s more at peace with that than anything else.

She barely notices Flynn collapse into the seat next to her. “Are you okay?” His voice is barely audible over the engines and screams of the other passengers.

“I...I don’t…” She swallows and shakes her head. “You?”

“I’ve done all I can! It’s in the pilot’s hands now!” He smiles bitterly. 

If she speaks again, she’s going to vomit all of her insides onto the vibrating floor, so Lucy just reaches for Flynn’s hand and holds it tight enough to bruise. He grips back just as hard. 

“I’ve got you,” he says, and it’s the last thing either of them say for the next several minutes, while they await their fate.

And an eternity later, when the plane touches down safely and rolls to an abrupt stop, she and Flynn throw their arms around each other in an equally bruising embrace, and it helps distract her from the fact that she was absolutely ready to die next to him.

* * *

Rufus finds a live news feed of the plane, praying and chanting “I am one with the Force and the Force is with me” over and over again until he sees it land safely on a highway, miraculously missing the cars on the roads.

“WHOOOOO!!” He leaps out of the chair and nearly falls to the ground, the feeling in his legs going totally numb. “Oh, oh God, I’m so happy I could puke, holy shit, I can’t believe that worked, I might have a heart attack, I should call my family, oh God, I think I’m crying, shit,” he drops back into the chair and sucks in enough deep breaths to hurt his abdomen. “You guys alright?”

“Ask me again in two hours,” Lucy answers. 

“Little bruised, but I’m alright,” Jiya adds, and Wyatt sounds as if he’s puking. Rufus wonders if he made it to the bathroom before doing so, and if he bothered to move Abrahamsen out of the way.

“What about Bader?” 

“Uh, she’s crying, but she’s no worse for wear,” Flynn reports.

“Get her off the plane now,” Lucy orders, her voice shaky but no less commanding. “Rufus, you need to get out of there before Gunther realizes the smoking gun isn’t dead.”

“No need to tell me twice.”

With that, Rufus steals the computer hard drive, leaves his party hat in its place, and exits FertiLIFE without looking back.

 _Age of the geek,_ he thinks triumphantly.

* * *

The next afternoon, at the Lifeboat offices, the footage of Gunther’s arrest plays on the screens. Convincing Bader to testify took no effort whatsoever. Once the poor woman was off the plane, she was _spitting_ angry and completely ready to tear the bastards open for trying to get away with murder and bribery.

Henceforth, a very satisfying, smug replay of the Gunther’s arrest is set up for the benefit of the still-jet-lagged teammates.

(By tomorrow they’ll all be laughing about this particular near-death experience, Flynn thinks. But that’s tomorrow. Today, his hands are still trembling, just a little, at the close call.)

Jiya is in the kitchen chatting excitedly with Rufus about her exciting time bouncing around the cargo hold of a crashing plane, while Rufus listens on with a smile that only barely hides his horror. Wyatt went home some time ago, looking green and exhausted and battered.

This leaves Flynn and Lucy and a veritable mountain of Silence to be traversed in the conference room. There’s a bottle of vodka sitting next to a glass and a container of baklava on the table. (Rufus must have found the time to restock her stash before they all returned.)

He wants to tell her how brave she was today, facing her crippling fear of flying. (He is still absolutely concerned about this new attitude about Doing the Job No Matter What, but there is something to be said about a claustrophobe confronting her well-earned fears.) He wants to tell her that he realized during those terrifying moments that the idea of dying with her hand in his wasn’t such a terrible one. He wants to embrace her again because the feeling of her in his arms was the most _right_ he’d felt in years.

“Why do you consider the car crash to be our first meeting?”

Lucy fiddles with the vodka bottle. “Do you know what I was going to do that night?” When he doesn’t answer, she continues, “I was on my way to my mother’s.” Her mouth turns into a bitter twist at the mention of a woman Flynn has only heard of but also has no love for. “I was going to tell her that...I was dropping out of college to join a band with my boyfriend, Todd.”

The temptation to laugh at the idea of career-driven Lucy giving up her education for a boy who probably didn’t deserve such devotion...actually, there is no temptation, he is more horrified than amused.

“When the car hit the water,” She shuts her eyes and pulls her hands back to her lap. “I thought, this is it. I’m going to die. I just...the water was coming up and I couldn’t--”

She cuts off with a shudder and Flynn wants nothing more than to take her hand again, but he doesn’t. He’s not sure she’ll accept more comfort from him now that their lives aren't in immediate danger.

“But, of course, you were there,” she finally continues. “You saw the car go through the guardrail, jumped in after me, pulled me out, called 911, stayed with me until the ambulance came...I gave it a week before I broke up with Todd and enrolled in the next semester. Nine years later, after Rittenhouse hired me to be their insurance fraud investigator, a file came across my desk about a troublesome grifter who had been giving Rittenhouse fits for months.”

She gives him a hell of a side-eye after that last statement. He just sits back with the most innocent “Who, me?” expression he can muster.

“So yes, technically, we didn’t exchange names until the blimp explosion in Germany. However, knowing who you were gave me a particular motivation to track you down, so that I could thank you.”

Flynn’s brow furrows. “You never thanked me.”

“Yeah, because you were being a smug jackass the entire time I chased after you. By the time I finally caught you that first time, all thoughts of gratitude had been firmly crushed.” 

They both burst into laughter for several comfortable moments before quieting down. “Anyway, if it weren’t for you, I’d be dead. I certainly wouldn’t have gone back to school and ended up as the investigator who chased you. They very well might have sent Emma that first time.”

Flynn doesn’t bother fighting back a sound of disgust at the mention of Lucy’s old colleague. If he ever encountered Emma again, it would be too soon.

“So you asked me why I count the crash?” She pours the vodka into the glass. “Because I met you then, and again, later, and...I don’t know. That first time felt like…” She gestures one hand aimlessly before shrugging, “...fate, maybe.”

Flynn can’t describe the way her words crawl into his heart, in the Lucy Preston shaped space that already exists, so he can hold onto them for as long as he can. (The idea that she _also_ thinks they are fated in some way is incredibly reassuring, no matter where it goes from here. Whether they are only ever friends with this powerful gravitational pull between them or if they’ll one day be More, they’ll always be connected somehow, and that gives him hope of at least one constant in his life.)

He ducks his head and bites his lip. Then he looks up at her and tilts his head in surrender. “Sixteen years it is then.”

She lifts her glass victoriously. “Glad you agree.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter gave me FITS. Eternal gratitude for madsthenerdygirl giving it a second look and reassuring me of its quality. Also, apparently "Flying High" was an alternate title for Airplane!
> 
> So, "Jiddo" is the Lebanese term for grandfather. See, my jiddo always told me to spell it Jido, or Jhido, but google revealed the spelling I used here, so honestly, my fellow Lebanese readers, if I butchered that or if you have even more spellings for this terms, let me know.


	6. Interlude: Addictions

Rufus is in the middle of updating his software in the conference room when a box of chocodiles drops onto the table in front of him. He leaps back in his wheelie chair about two feet with a yelp and sees Jiya standing next to the table.

“How did you get here--”

“We were running low and I saw them at the store,” she interrupts. “Don’t you like chocodiles?”

Rufus finds it hard to speak when his heart is trying to restart. How does she keep appearing out of _nowhere?_ “I--yes, I do--”

“So what’s wrong?”

“You just--you were--I didn’t--” Rufus sighs and waves his hands. “Nothing, nothing is wrong. Thank you for the chocodiles, I appreciate it.”

She smiles and the sight screws with his heartbeat once again. “Thanks. What do they taste like?”

Rufus shrugs and rips open the box. “Like someone took heaven, baked it into spongy cake, and dipped it in chocolate.”

Jiya’s head tilts. “I don’t think I’ve ever had chocolate.”

Rufus’s brain just about glitches. “You...are you serious? But you eat cereal!”

“Fruity cereal and cereal with marshmallows.”

“Girl. No.” Rufus yanks out a chocodile and tears off the plastic before handing it to her. “Welcome to Nirvana.”

Jiya warily takes the chocodile from him. Rotates it in her hand. Brings it to her nose to smell it. Then she shrugs and takes a small bite.

In the next second, her eyes go as wide as dinner plates. In the second after that, the rest of the chocodile has disappeared into her mouth, chocolate and crumbs smearing on her lips. In the second after _that,_ Jiya picks up the box and leaves the room.

“Hey!” Rufus’s arms spread in mild indignation. “I thought those were for me!”

Her shouted response is muffled by her chewing the chocodile, but he’s pretty sure she said, “Not anymore!”

Rufus shuts his eyes and covers his face with his hands. “What have I done?”

What he’s done, he learns over the next several days as his hidden-caches of chocodiles slowly dwindles and disappears, is kickstart a damn chocolate addiction for the one person he’d allow to get away with such thieving heresy. 

Of course, Wyatt also takes issue with this turn of events, if for completely different reasons. 

“Why does Jiya keep eating my pop-tarts?! I have my name on them and everything!”

“Wyatt, Jiya is a thief, do you really think seeing your name on a box is going to stop her?”

“But she never cared before! Why now?”

Rufus, normally, would be a little more sympathetic to losing a treasured treat, but he feels there is something more pressing here. “You eat chocolate pop-tarts?”

“That’s not the point! Why is Jiya suddenly stealing my food?!”

Rufus shrugs helplessly. “Man, that’s what we get for introducing a street-raised thief to chocolate for the first time.”

Wyatt crosses his arms. “Who is this ‘we’ you think you’re talking about?”

“Okay, fine, it’s my fault, but do you _really_ want to be the one to lay down the law with her?”

“What law?”

Rufus and Wyatt whip around to see Jiya in front of the refrigerator carrying what appears to be packages of ice cream sandwiches and sundae cones. 

Wyatt clears his throat and opens the freezer door for her. He speaks up while she empties her purchases. “Listen, Jiya--”

“Oh!” She runs out of the break room and returns with more bags, leaving Wyatt with the freezer door open. She pulls boxes of pop-tarts and chocodiles out and throws them to Wyatt and Rufus respectively. “Flynn said that if I’m going to eat everyone’s snacks, then I need to be willing to buy more to compensate.” With that, she tears into a box of sundae cones, pulls one out for herself, and skips out of the room.

Wyatt and Rufus blink after her exit, completely stunned, and then look back at their containers of junk food. “Um…” Rufus glances at Wyatt. “Are you planning to shut that door today?”

Wyatt slams the freezer door shut, mumbling the whole time about why everyone seems to listen to _Flynn_ and not him. Rufus wisely decides that whole Thing is too much of a minefield to make a quip about at this time and just leaves the room with his chocodiles in peace.

(Rufus may be an absolute zero on the Kinsey Scale, but he’s not totally blind to the appeal of their resident grifter, and Wyatt’s weird fixation on Flynn is not his problem. Hopefully it never will be.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was inspired by the commentary for the Boiler Room Job episode of Leverage (S4 Ep8), where the creators described how they imagined Parker's very first introduction to chocolate which inspired her arc for the episode. If you have the means to do so, i HIGHLY recommend listening to the commentary for Leverage. They do it for every single episode and there is always super interesting tidbits, both with how they did certain tricks and with the lore for Leverage itself regarding characters and actors. It is highly entertaining and highly informative for burgeoning filmmakers as well, because they talk a lot about camerawork and how they approach characters/plots as well.


	7. The Absolution Job

For a man whose non-criminal hobby was directing and writing plays/film scripts, Flynn is surprisingly private about letting _anyone_ look at said scripts.

As showcased now, where Wyatt listens to Rufus beg Flynn for a peek at some of Flynn’s work while the coffee pot runs. “C’mon, man, just one page!”

“No one gets to see one _word_ until I’m finished.”

“Are you finished with it?”

“Yes.” Flynn leaves the break room with a container of garlic-stuffed olives in hand. 

Rufus throws his hands up and turns to Wyatt. “How am I supposed to make blackmail material if no one trusts me?”

“You...what? Blackmail?”

Rufus gives Wyatt a look as if this should be obvious to him. “Wyatt, I’m a hacker. Half my work involves blackmail and humiliation. Did you think you guys would be an exception?”

Wyatt scoffs as he empties the coffee pot into his mug. “Oh, c’mon. You’ve got nothing on me.”

“You sure about that, tumblr user bondboy69?”

With that, Rufus leaves as well with a shit-eating grin on his face, totally oblivious to Wyatt staring after him as the coffee pot misses the mug and starts pooling onto the counter top. Wyatt, of course, doesn’t notice until some drips onto his shoe and burns his toe, and only then does he start swearing and sopping the liquid up with the nearest dish towel.

Eventually, Wyatt makes his way into the conference room with a new mug of coffee. Jiya is sitting by Rufus, the former picking at the lock on a pair of handcuffs while the latter types away on his laptop. Across the table, Lucy is looking through a file and Flynn is organizing a new set of IDs Rufus made for him. 

“Oh, Flynn, I put the script on your desk with a few notes and suggestions,” Lucy comments several minutes later. “Not too shabby for a first draft.”

“Thanks, Lucy.”

“Oh, of course, _Lucy_ gets to read the damn script,” Rufus grumbles.

“Lucy doesn’t keep blackmail files on the rest of us,” Flynn snaps right back with a smug grin.

“Wait, you _knew_ about that?” Wyatt demands.

Flynn winks at him, and Wyatt _hates_ the heat that rises in his cheeks at the gesture. Wyatt already has ninety-nine problems, he does not need Questioning his Sexuality to be one of them.

“He’s been trying to buy your blackmail file off of me for a few weeks now,” Rufus discloses. “Luckily for you, I’m a good teammate, and have not succumbed to temptation.”

“A good teammate doesn’t _keep blackmail files_ on his other teammate!”

Jiya finally looks up from the handcuffs she just picked open again. “Do I have a file?”

Rufus’s mouth opens and closes like a fish out of water. “I...well...even if I wanted to, um...there are literally no files on you. Anywhere.”

“Good.” She returns her attention to her handcuffs just as someone’s phone goes off.

“Oh, that’s me.” Flynn pulls his phone out of his pocket and then freezes when he looks at the screen. This draws everyone else’s attention. Even Jiya.

“Everything alright, man?” Rufus asks.

Flynn doesn’t seem to hear him. He hits a button on his phone and puts it to his ear, and in the same beat, rises out of his chair and leaves the room, but not before they all hear him say, “Stiv? Are you okay?”

Wyatt turns to Lucy, who’s still staring at the vacated doorway. “Who’s Stiv?”

She swallows and doesn’t look at him. She suddenly looks very old and very sad and _very_ worried. “Flynn’s brother-in-law.”

* * *

Flynn, like most sane people, really hates hospitals.

Back when he was fighting in just about every rebellion that took place in the world, he got unfortunately familiar with just about every kind of hospital in every kind of environment. Each one had its own challenges and irritations, but there will always be a special place in Hell for whoever first decided on the sterile white _everything_ that permeates American hospitals.

But this time he’s not in this place for himself.

He finds the man he’s looking for on the fifth floor. There’s a strange vulnerability, familiarity, in seeing the man out of his clerical clothing.

A mugging gone wrong, supposedly. But Flynn knows better. People don’t attack a well-reputed small-town _priest,_ of all people, for money alone.

“Garcia?” Father Jeremy Cheng smiles when he sees his visitor. “Hey, it’s good to see you.”

Flynn clears his throat. This...this is going to be hard. “I wish it was under better circumstances.”

Cheng tilts his head in acknowledgement. “Well, if I’d known it would take getting my ribs kicked in to make you reappear, I’d have made it happen sooner.”

“Don’t say that, I--” Flynn shakes his head. “How are you doing, Father?”

Father Cheng shrugs and then winces, one hand going for his ribcage. “Not too bad. I managed to hit one guy in the shoulder. I think I felt it dislocate before I blacked out.”

“I read about that in the police report, nice job.”

“You--you did?”

“Perk of the new job,” Flynn explains with a dismissive wave of his hand.

“How’d you know I was here?”

“Stiv called me--”

“You and Stiv keep in touch?”

On the list of things Flynn does not want to talk about ever, this is pretty close to the top. He decides to get to the matter at hand. “Father, what is this I hear about someone trying to tear down the church? Is that why you were attacked?”

Cheng’s eyes darken at the reminder. “I was on my way to talk to the city council, beg them to reconsider.” He sucks in a shallow breath and lets it out. “Do you and Stiv talk a lot?”

“When is the sale finalized?”

“St. Michael’s closes Monday, why?”

The conversation is interrupted by the hallway intercom announcing a Code Blue, and Flynn’s body seizes for the longest of moments.

_“Sir, can you tell us your daughter’s blood type? Sir, can you hear me--?”_

_“Daddy, it hurts--”_

“I’m sorry,” Father Cheng’s voice drags him back to the present. “I know hospitals are hard for you.”

Flynn swallows back bile and blocks out the deafening sound of ambulance sirens in his ears. “Father, what about legal action, have you tried--”

“We don’t have the money.” Cheng’s head sinks further into the bed pillows. “I guess I was wrong. God’s plan doesn’t involve saving the church. But you know what? I’m going to make the most of it anyway. Our last Mass is on Sunday, and I’m going to make it a good one. It’d mean a lot if you’d come.”

“It won’t be your last Mass, Father.” Flynn wonders if maybe he shouldn’t have said that as he starts leaving the room.

“Garcia? What are you planning to do, exactly?”

The wariness in the priest’s tone is pretty funny, actually. Flynn cracks his first real smile since he stepped into this place.

“I’m going to see about changing God’s plan.”

* * *

Much to Flynn’s surprise, the team is waiting for him at St. Michael’s. 

“Look, I just need a few days to sort this out,” he starts to explain to Lucy. “Father Cheng is a good man, and it won’t take long for me to--”

“Flynn.” Lucy stares at him with a quirk of her lips. “We’re doing this with you.”

“We--you are?”

“Yeah.”

Flynn looks at the others, who nod with varying expressions of “obviously we’re going to help, you idiot.”

Considering he was fully prepared to do this job on his own, this leaves him quite wrong-footed, all his scripted remarks and arguments going out the window. “Oh, well, good, I…”

“So,” Lucy hops off a pew and stands next to him, “this is a pretty ballsy move. Take out the activist priest so that the sale for sure closes on Monday. Rufus, did you find out anything who bought the church?”

“Yep!” Rufus suddenly lifts up real estate sign after real estate sign from a pile on his lap, and Flynn is utterly _baffled,_ what the hell? How did he put that together so quickly? “Whoever it is went through about four different companies just to hide that they were doing so.”

“That’s a lot of effort to go through just to buy an old church,” Wyatt comments. 

“I agree.” Lucy gestures to the team. “Jiya, you go check out the addresses of the realty companies. Wyatt, Rufus, go find the local talent that beat up Father Cheng. Flynn, can you tell us anything that can help them find who did it?”

Flynn is still in shock that he’s going to have back-up for this, but he does manage to speak over Rufus’s protests over getting involved with locating gangs. “He mentioned that he dislocated someone’s shoulder.”

Wyatt nods. “I’ll keep that in mind. C’mon, Rufus. It’ll be good to get some fresh air, get away from computer screens for a while.”

“What, does no one remember that I _leapt off a building_ already?”

Their banter continues all the way out of the church, but Flynn is distracted by looking around the place. The stained glass windows, the statue of Saint Nicholas, the figure of Christ at the front, the light of the burning votive candles flickering in the distance...God, it’s barely changed since he was last here.

The sight of the place where he and Lorena christened Iris...it's not unlike an anvil landing on his chest, a constant, cracking pressure leaving him short of breath and in chronic pain.

“You going to be okay?” Lucy whispers, one hand touching his elbow.

Flynn sucks in a breath that scratches at his insides like glass shards. “He’s an old friend. I...I owe it to him.” He glances at her out of the corner of his eyes. “Thank you, for taking the case.”

Lucy looks at him with something he’d dare call tenderness. “I wasn’t going to let you go through this alone. Now come on, let’s go do more research at the offices.”

* * *

“I do not want to be here.”

“Yes, Rufus, you mentioned that.”

“I am in an alleyway with a white dude waiting for a gang, it’s like you are _trying_ to get me killed.”

Wyatt rolls his eyes before putting his hand out to stop Rufus at the sound of footsteps behind them. “Just...let me do the talking.”

Rufus lets out a quiet squeak of fear when he sees the company following him and Wyatt. Wyatt keeps his body language nonthreatening, relaxed and loose, for the moment. Rufus hopes that this means violence isn’t guaranteed. 

“We don’t want any trouble. We just have some questions that need answering.”

The middle guy, who Rufus assumes is the leader of this particular group, shifts his jacket to reveal a gun tucked into his pants. “This answer enough for you?”

Wyatt reaches for the handle and cocks it without taking it out of the guy’s pants. “Look, we just need to ask which one of your guys beat up a priest yesterday. Give us a name, and we’ll be on our way.”

A beat of quiet follows. Then one of the other rattled goons pulls a gun inches away from Wyatt’s face.

Rufus shuts his eyes and shakes his head. Is it worth praying to a God he doesn’t believe in on the off-chance that he can still get out of this in one piece? 

“Can I show you something, Rufus?”

“Oh, I’m seeing plenty right now, thank you very much.” But Rufus cracks one eye open anyway.

“This is why I stopped using guns,” Wyatt continues without breaking eye contact with the lead guy, without taking his hand off that first handgun. “They have a specific range of efficacy. The mistake everyone makes?” He finally looks at the second guy. “They get too close.”

Wyatt wrestles the gun from the second guy, pulls him in for a headbutt that knocks him down for the count, empties the bullets from the weapon, and focuses back on the lead guy. “Don’t. Make me. Ask. Again,” he orders in a low growl. 

You know, for all the teasing Rufus puts Wyatt for, he really should remember that Wyatt has killed. A lot.

Out of the corner of Rufus’s eye, he suddenly sees the third gang member shifting his weight, and what looks like guilt wrinkling his eyes. He’s...moving like something hurts. Like his right arm--

“Hey, we didn’t beat up no priest,” the leader finally says. “We’re not monsters.”

Rufus decides that if he wants to get out of here sooner rather than later, he needs to take a risk. So he punches Mr. Shifty in the arm and the guy goes down like wet cardboard.

“Oh, my bad, is that a dislocated shoulder?” Rufus asks without any note of apology in his tone. He tugs on the ends of his jacket. He looks at the leader, who had pulled away from Wyatt in surprise when Rufus made his move, leaving Wyatt with the Pants Gun. “The priest gave him that.”

Leader Guy’s brows shoot upwards and then furrow into fury. He turns on the fallen member. “You beat up a _priest_ ? _!”_

The outrage in his voice surprises Rufus. Then again, who is he to question criminals with morals?

Leader Guy reaches out to Wyatt, who hands back the weapon with far more ease than Rufus thinks is earned. Leader Guy cocks the weapon again and points it at the guilty party. “You got a long penance ahead of you. Start by answering their questions. _Now._ ”

Wyatt crosses his arms. “Who hired you?”

“I don’t know. I got a call with the offer, and I was supposed to call him when the job was done, then he paid me.” Priest Puncher curls in on himself, tears filling his eyes. “That’s all I know, I swear, that’s all I know!”

“You have a number?”

Priest Puncher rifles through his flannel and pulls out a tiny slip of folded paper. Rufus takes it. Opens it to see said phone number.

“Can you work with that?” Wyatt asks.

“With seven digits, I can find you on Tatooine, dude.”

Wyatt turns back to the leader and the two exchange a respectful nod. “Gentleman, we’ll leave you to your internal affairs.”

As they exit the tunnel, Wyatt claps Rufus on the shoulder. “Nice job in there, man.”

“I might throw up in your car." 

“Please don’t. Or at least do it outside.”

“Your concern is touching, Logan.”

* * *

The phone number, after a few other obstacles with the tracing, leads the team to Andrew Grant, a real estate mogul who specializing in tearing down entire neighborhoods in favor of things like malls and luxury condos. Rufus can’t exactly prove that Grant owns the shell companies that bought the church, but the handiwork is pretty damn obvious.

Weaknesses: the man is a media whore, is in desperate need of a publicist, and pops anti-anxiety pills like water after a helicopter crash he was in last year.

Lucy’s orders?

“This guy beat up a priest. We’re gonna give him hell.”

Rufus is not religious by any means. God had nothing to do with getting his family out of debt, that was all him. God didn’t get them a new house, new car, that was Rufus. Out of deference to his mother’s beliefs, however, he’s tried to at least be respectful of the principal of the thing.

That being said, it’s pretty low to beat up one of the few good priests he’s ever heard of. Rufus knows that Flynn wouldn’t insist on this job if the guy wasn’t worthy of their help. Henceforth, he’s absolutely willing to go harder than ever on this bastard.

...Rufus is glad he didn’t say that out loud, it sounds weirdly sexual even in his head.

The plan starts at a construction site for one of Grant’s other projects. Lucy is on the grift this time around, playing an Australian journalist named Dana Scott. When Flynn asked about this decision back at HQ, Lucy said something about her being less likely to punch Grant in the face than Flynn. 

Flynn didn’t disagree, but Rufus suspects that he had a few things to say about which one of them has more of a tendency to get more “emotionally involved” in a mission, personal connection or not.

After Grant ignores Lucy’s initial attempts at an interview, the fun officially starts.

Jiya bumps into him quite violently, and manages to switch out his anti-anxiety pills with something else (Rufus doesn’t really want to know what). Then Wyatt rams into Grant’s second in command (Tomas? Right?) with a wheelbarrow, so that Grant gets into the elevator alone with Lucy on their way to a press conference on the bottom floor.

This is Rufus’s cue to fiddle with some wires and stop the elevator halfway to its destination. Then the rest of them sit back and listen as the guy spiral into a panic.

“What did you just take?” Lucy asks after several minutes of the guy pacing back and forth.

“Anti-anxiety meds. For my nerves.”

Jiya comes up next to Rufus with a gleeful smile. “Actually, caffeine. With a dose of dextroamphetamine.”

Rufus chokes on his saliva. “Damn, girl.”

Over the comms, they hear Grant start to hyperventilate. “Are you getting any air in here? I feel like I’m sucking on a tailpipe! This is like the witch’s oven from _Hansel and Gretel!”_

“Wait.” Wyatt comes to stand next to Jiya. “You gave the guy Speed?”

Jiya shrugs. “He upset Flynn.”

Rufus inclines his head in agreement. “I mean...the guy also beat up a priest.”

“Sure, yeah, that too.”

Wyatt considers this. “Fair enough.”

On the other end, it sounds like Grant is stomping his foot. Then he starts screaming at the top of his lungs. “GET ME OUT OF HERE!!! FOR GOD’S SAKE, CAN ANYBODY HEAR ME!? YOU’RE ALL FIRED, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU--”

“So this is going great so far,” Rufus comments. This is satisfying, he won't lie, in a way it hasn't been in past jobs. Maybe because it has to do with helping Flynn, but also because this mark is particularly annoying and arrogant, either way, Rufus isn't feeling any guilt over sending a guy into a literal panic.

Lucy starts talking Grant down, reminding him of the press waiting for them on the bottom floor. “Send us home,” she mutters while Grant panics once again about what the reporters will say about him. 

“Got it, Captain.” Rufus fiddles with the wires again and gets the elevator going again.

They listen in as Lucy convinces Grant to act as if Lucy fainted in the elevator and carries her through the reporters for assistance.

Looks like Lucy is a lock for being Grant’s next publicist.

* * *

“He wants to do _what_ with the church?”

“He’s tearing it down for a damn ‘Lifestyle Center,’” Lucy repeats grimly. The team is situated in the briefing room, looking at the documents she received from the man. “One of those ‘eat, work, shop, play’ all in one place kind of things.”

Wyatt gives a low whistle. “That is...wow, that is slimy.”

“He doesn’t want the church’s closing to be connected to him,” Rufus reports. “But he has the city council in his pocket, got the land for a song, and once this deal closes, he’s free and clear. By the time they break ground on this mall, he’ll be untouchable.”

“Are there any Patron Saints of Lost Causes?” Jiya asks. “I know nothing about Catholicism, but that seems relevant right now.”

Flynn gives her a withering look before switching back to Lucy. “So that’s it then? There’s no way we can do this?”

“I didn’t say that,” Lucy reassures him. “Grant trusts me, I can hook him.”

“But Lucy, we don’t have time!” he presses. God knows, he has more faith in her than he does in anything else in the world, but he’s not blind to the situation. “We need a long con for this job. He’s going to own St. Michael’s in three days.”

“We just have to hit him hard now,” Lucy argues. “If we stall the closing, we can buy enough time for a longer game.”

“There’s no way this guy will fall for that,” Wyatt points out. “Lucy, face it, this job needs a miracle.”

Lucy’s lips purse with thought. She looks at Flynn out of the corner of her eyes and gives him a smile that, frankly, makes him worry even more about what‘s in her head for this one (as much as it also gets his blood going, he hates to admit).

“Let’s steal a miracle, then.”

* * *

Rufus is learning more about Catholicism on this job than he did when attending a school system full of Catholics for thirteen years of his life. Of course, learning about it over coffee in Lucy’s office with Flynn and the rest of the team is preferable to having those beliefs shoved down his throat when he deigns to admit to being an atheist.

Flynn seems uneasy about informing Lucy about the details of what technically qualifies as a miracle, but he does so anyway. “The Catholic Church defines a miracle as an act of God usually through the prayers and intercessions of a saint for some specific purpose, frequently the conversion of the unbelieving.”

“And you know all of this how?” Rufus asks. “And why?” Absolutely nothing about Flynn screamed God-fearing man, but hey, Rufus was learning new things about these weirdos every day.

Flynn’s eyes darken for a moment. “My wife was the practicing Catholic. Her grandfather had been a priest.”

Rufus flinches, along with the rest of the room, at the mention of Flynn’s wife. The reports in his initial research into everyone’s history were spotty, to say the least, about the circumstances surrounding Flynn’s family, but...damn, just reading about the brutal murder of two innocent people was hard for Rufus.

How does anyone live after something like that?

“Wait, so shouldn’t you, out of all of us, have a bigger problem with faking a miracle?” Wyatt points out. “Shouldn’t that be a ‘mortal sin’ or something?”

Flynn glances over at Lucy, who looks right back. Flynn’s gaze is measuring. Lucy’s is challenging, but in a gentler way than usual.

Rufus thinks that for all that Lucy has grown more confident and sure of her decisions during jobs (questionable though they usually are), she would probably only consider another option if Flynn asked it, since this is _his_ faith they are messing with.

(If they asked him, Rufus would be down with whatever option lead to _less_ Overt Sexual Tension, but he’s not touching that with a ten-foot pole.)

“If you think this is the fastest way to save St. Michael’s,” Flynn eventually says, “then I’m willing to do it.”

“I do. There’s no way Andrew Grant would build a mall on a holy site.”

Flynn lets out a breath. “Then what’s next?”

Lucy's relief is palpable. “We need three things.” Lucy starts counting off on her hand. “We need a miracle, we need publicity, and we need to keep Father Cheng out of this so he isn’t at risk of being a fall guy.”

Rufus raises his hand, but doesn’t wait to be called on. “We did learn that the guy is a media whore. Reporters are always following him. We could use him as bait.”

“Use his own publicity to wreck his project.” Jiya grins. “I like that.”

“So do I,” Lucy agrees. “So, here’s what we do. Jiya, go to the hospital and try to keep Father Cheng there no matter what.” At the worrying smile Jiya makes, Lucy’s quick to tack on, “To a point, don’t do anything drastic, just make sure he doesn’t leave. Wyatt, you’re the retrieval specialist, get Rufus what he needs to fake a miracle. Now if you'll excuse me, I’m going to leak Grant’s church purchase to the press, get the bastard to sweat a little so he'll play into our hands easier.”

And then, as she’s wont to do, Lucy waltzes out of the room without further explanation.

“You know,” Rufus says when everyone looks at him after Lucy’s departure, “it’s lucky for you guys that I don’t believe in Hell. Otherwise we’d all be screwed.”

For the next half hour or so, Rufus questions Flynn on how to best go about faking a miracle. “So...try to make the statue of Saint Nicholas cry? That’s your suggestion?”

“It’s the best one you can do on this kind of deadline,” Flynn explains. 

Rufus side-eyes him. “You sure you’re okay with this? Faking a miracle?”

“My faith has never been particularly strong.” Flynn leans his one palm against the conference table. “Everyone in my family went, so I joined them, but...it never really took. Not too deep, anyway. It...comes in waves. What faith I did have has been...well, I haven't prayed in a long time, to say the least.”

Rufus nods. That makes sense. 

Flynn stares at him. “What do you want?”

“What?”

“You’ve got that look.”

“What look?”

“The ‘I’ve got something else to say but it might make things awkward’ look.”

Rufus thinks that is awfully specific, but, to be fair, Flynn isn’t wrong. “It’s just...well...I mean…” He sighs. “Screw it. I just wanted to say I’m sorry. About your family.” 

As he predicted, Flynn stiffens at his sympathies. He looks away. Rufus powers through. 

“I can’t even imagine what you went through--what you _are_ going through. And I know we don’t know each other _that well,_ but...” He shrugs. “I’m here if you need to talk. Or be distracted. I don’t know your process so I’m not sure what to offer here.”

He didn’t intend that last bit to be funny, but Flynn laughs anyway. “I appreciate it, Rufus. I’m fine, right now, but thank you. I’m trying to stay focused on the mission.”

“I imagine it’s not easy,” Rufus mentions. “I mean, you’re basically on the bench for this one--”

“Don’t worry, I’m keeping busy.” Flynn pats his shoulder. “I’m good, but thank you.”

As Flynn exits the room, Rufus thinks that for all of the man’s natural swagger and confidence and oozing charm, he’s got more uncertainty and pain than any of them can imagine.

* * *

When Lucy comes back from Grant’s office, Flynn finds her setting her purse on her desk.

“How’d it go?”

Lucy looks up and smiles. It strikes him, not for the first time and certainly not for the last, that there’s a lot he would do to see her smile more.

“He’s calling a press conference tomorrow to try to beat back the bad publicity,” she reports. “And the assistant? Tomas? He doesn’t seem sold on Grant’s project. We might be able to use him somehow.”

Flynn nods. “Good, that’s-that’s good.” Another beat passes, and Flynn turns to leave. 

“Flynn.”

He turns back and the sincerity in her eyes almost makes him leave anyway. After Rufus’s unexpected heart-to-heart exchange, he’s not sure he wants to talk heavy again. But it’s very hard for Flynn to look away from her. It always has been.

(It’s like trying to break eye contact with a goddess demanding your prayers. One doesn’t just ignore the divine, hard as Flynn sometimes tries.)

“I wanted to ask,” she begins, suddenly uncertain, “um, how was it? Talking to Stiv? I don’t think I’ve seen him since...maybe Prague?”

“Yeah, I think you’re right.” _That_ had been an interesting job, made even more interesting by Lucy chasing after him. Flynn shrugs. “It was...it was okay. I mean...”

“When was the last time you talked with him?”

“Probably...two or three years ago. We went our separate ways, and…” He shrugs again. “I just...talking to him, it…”

“You feel guilty,” Lucy suggests. “And you shouldn’t. You know that, right?”

Flynn summons enough courage to look away at that. Old wounds seep and bleed like the tragedy only happened yesterday.

“Flynn, what happened to Lorena and Iris, that wasn’t your fault--”

"Lucy, don't--"

"It _wasn't,_ and you shouldn't keep feeling like it--"

“Lucy, it has to be,” he interrupts. He’s trying very hard to keep the heat out of his voice but it’s very close. He hasn’t talked to _anyone_ about this, apart from Stiv when it first happened, and he doesn’t know what he’s going to accomplish by telling Lucy now, but the words are already pouring out of him like the dam in his throat has cracked open. “The men who broke into our house had army-grade weapons. I _know_ they were hired guns, and why else would they have been hired if not for something I did--”

“And what, exactly, could you have done to warrant someone killing a _child_?” Lucy argues back. She doesn’t bother hiding any heat from her tone, protective and fierce. “Nothing can excuse that--”

“You don’t know all I’ve done, Lucy,” he interrupts. His anger is leaking through now. “I fought in too many wars to count, I did contract work for years, any one of them…” His hands press into his forehead. “And I don’t know who, all this time, all this fighting and stealing and searching, and I still _don’t know why they’re dead.”_

Lucy reaches out to touch him but he pulls away. “Flynn--”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Lucy,” he says. “I just want to focus on helping Cheng.”

It’s the one thing he _can_ do. He can’t bring back his family, but he can help someone who knew them, who loved them.

He feels her eyes on him. He doesn’t think he’s brave enough to stand however she’s looking at him right now. He thinks the pity could kill him. (Lucy may be fractured right now, but Flynn’s been broken for so long, the sharp edges have smoothed over. But pieces still cut into him when he least expects it.)

“Okay,” she eventually says. “Okay, I get it.” 

He listens to her walk by, but he doesn’t take his eyes off the potted plant on her bookshelf. 

“Just…” She’s stopped at the doorway, “...don’t forget I’m here for you.”

She leaves and Flynn wonders if the universe is conspiring to pick him apart piece by broken piece today, until there's nothing left to destroy.

* * *

The good news: Rufus managed to successfully fake a miracle and the hype interrupted Grant’s press conference at the church.

“How’d you do it?” Jiya asked during the team’s initial excitement. “The statue is _literally_ crying!”

“Basic chemistry,” Rufus responded. “I used an oil polymer that reacts to a secondary chemical in the candles. No candle smoke, no evidence, and you’ve got a crying St. Nick!”

“Does this mean we can finally get rid of all those creepy-ass St. Nick statue copies you made?” Wyatt asked. “I see one every time I turn a corner at the offices and it freaks me out. It’s like those Angels from that episode of Doctor Who you made me watch.”

“Oh, that one’s a classic! Just don't blink, Wyatt, you'll be fine.” 

Rufus couldn’t have looked more besotted with Jiya in that moment if he actively attempted to. 

At the time, Flynn was feeling pretty good. Until they realized the bad news.

Their fake miracle worked a little _too well._

When they first arrive at the church after the big reveal, there’s a line of people trailing down the street, filling up the courtyard, all waiting to see the statue in person.

“Oh damn, Crying St. Nick is on YouTube,” Rufus reports after scrolling through his phone.

“This is a _huge_ problem. I mean,” Wyatt’s arms flail out before dropping back to his sides, “eventually people are going to realize it's a fa--” He cuts off when Jiya elbows him. 

Flynn can’t help but feel like he should have predicted this kind of reaction. Just because he and the team has a relationship with religion ranging from nonexistent to tenuous at best, doesn’t mean the rest of the world feels the same way. Too many people have been waiting to witness a miracle in their lives and now they’ve been given a false one.

Flynn can see the moment Lucy realizes they may have miscalculated as she runs a hand through her hair. She glances at him, guilt flashing across her face, and shakes her head. “You know what, no, we can still work with this, we can. I need to find Grant and make sure this stunt scares him off--”

“Garcia?!”

Oh _goddamn_ it. Flynn turns just as Father Cheng approaches him, panic lining every inch of his face. “Garcia, what did you do--?”

Flynn grips Cheng’s arm gently and leads him into the church away from the crowd, but he can feel the rest of the team watching his exit with concern. “Father, shouldn’t you still be in the hospital?”

“I should have been out yesterday, but someone screwed up my blood tests and the doctors thought I was _pregnant_ of all things,” Cheng reports before continuing, “now what in God’s name did you do?”

Pregnant? What the hell did Jiya do? Flynn doesn't know whether to be impressed or disturbed. “What, you don’t believe miracles can happen in this day and age, Father? Now who’s the unbeliever?”

“Don’t give me that.” Cheng digs his heels in and drags Flynn to a halt. “Garcia, tell me you didn’t do this.”

“I didn’t do this.” 

Cheng stares at him, completely baffled and borderline offended. “You--I can’t believe--Garcia, you are _lying_. Right to my face. In _church!”_ His arms stretch out in outrage. “You put a fake miracle in my--”

Flynn shushes him during his last accusation. “Keep it down, Father, you don’t want to offend anyone.”

“Flynn, you cannot play God!” Cheng continues. “Look, we can fix this, just tell me what’s going on--”

“Father, believe me, it’s better that you don’t know what’s going on. I can tell you, however,” Flynn’s confidence wavers a bit, “that...it’s being taken care of.”

_I hope._

Flynn hurries out of the church before Cheng can question the uncertainty in his tone.

And then, somehow, things get even _worse_ when Lucy returns from her meeting with Grant.

“What the hell is _Bibletopia_ supposed to be?! _”_ Rufus asks in disbelief.

“A ‘Lifestyle and Recreation Park-Center’ Grant wants to build, centered around the Statue of St. Nick,” Lucy reports. Her hands are opening and closing like she’s imagining herself strangling Grant. “Complete with souvenirs and a goddamn _Red Sea_ replica that parts every half hour.” 

“Souvenirs?”

Lucy reaches into her purse and pulls out a -- oh, what the ever-loving hell? -- St. Nicholas bobble-head. 

Wyatt throws up his hands. “How the _hell_ can this guy turn a miracle into another profit?”

“He doesn’t think the miracle is real,” Lucy explains with growing frustration and despair. “He’s under the impression that Father Cheng faked it to keep the church from shutting down.”

Rufus buries his face in his hands. “Oh, the painful irony…”

Jiya nudges Flynn’s arm. “Isn’t there something about an ‘eye for an eye’ in the bible?”

“It absolutely does _not_ apply to this situation.” Flynn puts up his hand and their group comes to stop in front of the church. 

“I mean,” Lucy starts in a reassuring tone, “we can still work with this we just--”

She’s cut off when a large black van pulls to a screeching stop in the church parking lot.

Flynn didn’t think it was possible that this could get even worse, but perhaps God is listening and having a laugh at his expense right now. As if the divine bastard hadn’t had enough fun with Flynn’s misfortunes.

“Apostolic visitation,” he mutters in horror.

Wyatt comes up next to him. “What the what now?”

Flynn gestures helplessly at the pile of priests pouring out of the vehicle. “The Vatican. That’s the Vatican.”

Rufus, Jiya, and Wyatt all exchange panicked looks before promptly nope-ing out of the area. Lucy’s look of horror matches his.

“We got the _Vatican_ to show up?” she hisses as they enter the church. “What is ‘apostolic visitation’?”

Flynn observes the group of priests congregated around the end of the pews with growing hopelessness. “Apostolic Visitation is basically the Pope’s CSI. They investigate miracles to see if they’re hoaxes.”

“You’ve got to be kidding!” Lucy’s hands cover her mouth before dropping. “They’re going to find out the truth, close the church, and blame Father Cheng for fraud, we can’t even get Grant to do what we want, this is--” She shakes her head. “This is my fault, damn it, Flynn, I’m so _sorry_ , I didn’t mean for this to happen, I just wanted to help you--”

Lucy’s apology guts him like a rusty harpoon. “Lucy, I am just as much to blame here. I helped you come up with this plan.” He puts a hand on her shoulder and glances back at the priests. “We just...have to undo a fake miracle, that’s all.”

“Oh yeah, _that’s all.”_

Flynn wants to find some other way to reassure her (she feels like she’s let him down, she could _never_ let him down, ever) but at that moment, Cheng appears around the corner and makes a beeline for the priests.

Oh shit, no no _no--_

“Father, help me!” Flynn shouts as he crosses the distance between them. He takes Cheng by the arm and leads him away. “Please, I need your guidance, I am experiencing the worst temptation--” once they’re out of earshot of the Vatican, Flynn sighs. “Tell me you weren’t about to tell them about the miracle.”

“Of course I was! Flynn, I could get defrocked for this! You can’t keep lying!”

“Okay, okay, _fine,_ I’ll explain everything, just…” Flynn hops into the confessional.

“Garcia, that’s _my_ side!” 

Flynn hears a groan before Cheng gets into the stall. “You always have to find a loophole, don’t you?”

“You can’t report me for anything I tell you in here, so I’d say it works out just--”

“If you don’t start this right, I’m leaving.”

Flynn shuts his eyes and lets his head fall back against the wood. “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been…”

“Eight years,” Cheng offers, “two months, and nineteen days since your last confession…” A heavy beat of silence follows. “I was at the funeral. You left before I could say anything.”

Flynn can’t swallow past the feeling of broken glass in his throat. “So...yes, the miracle is fake. It was my idea,” he lies. He has no intention of letting Lucy or the team take the fall for this. “I had no idea this would happen. I didn’t think Grant would keep trying to profit from it, or that this many people would flock to it--”

“‘I have committed a string of selfish, hurtful acts,’” Cheng corrects.

Flynn bites back a bitter huff. “I’m trying to do the right thing, trying to help people.”

“The ends don’t justify the means, Flynn!” Cheng hisses. It’s the angriest he’s ever heard the mild-mannered priest sound. “Do you think I don’t see what you’re doing?”

“Oh really? What am I doing then, Father?”

“Do you think I don’t see when someone is trying to get himself killed, and take some bad guys down with him?”

That catches Flynn right in the gut. Not for the reason Cheng probably meant, but Flynn can’t focus on _that_ right now.

(There’s a...small grain of truth to what Cheng is accusing him of. He’s in better shape emotionally than he’s been in years, but if this job has taught him anything, he still has unresolved issues that should eventually be addressed. More importantly...the moment Cheng implied Flynn was suicidal, Flynn immediately thought of Lucy. Of her behavior as of late. The desperate gleam in her eyes.)

“Cheng, we are trying to save you, trying to save the damn _church--”_

“Flynn, you _faked a miracle!_ You’ve given my parishioners false hope, and now you’re just going to yank it away again? I told you, maybe it wasn’t God’s plan to save the church. Maybe I need to lose the church to save you.”

Flynn wants to call bullshit on that idea. God doesn’t just play willy-nilly with taking things from people in exchange for something else, and if He did, He certainly wouldn't be a god worth worshiping, but the words catch in Flynn's throat.

Cheng sighs. He sounds beyond tired, he sounds like he's watched a century pass by in only one day. “Go and sin no more.” He leaves, and Flynn is left lost in thought and no small amount of loss.

He’s just about to leave, when the door to the other side of the confessional opens again. Flynn almost tells the newcomer that he’s not Father Cheng, but then--

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”

Flynn nearly chokes on his own saliva. That's...that's Tomas. Grant’s regretful assistant.

_Well then._

* * *

Jiya’s not claustrophobic in the way that Lucy is, but that doesn’t mean she relishes being stuffed into a tiny closet with the team while they wait for the church to empty. Especially when they won’t let her _talk_.

Finally, _finally,_ the Vatican vacates the church, and then they tumble out of the confined space into the open.

“As soon as they examine the statue,” Rufus begins, “they’re going to know those aren’t real tears.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was trying to say,” Jiya points out, “but you guys wouldn’t let me talk while we were in the closet.”

“That’s a _confessional,”_ Wyatt corrects, “not a closet.”

“Damn it, what are we going to do?” Lucy paces behind the last pew in the church. “They’ll find out the statue tears are fake and blame Father Cheng, but if we steal the statue to keep them from finding out, he’ll be blamed for covering up a fraud--”

“We...might have an option,” Flynn interrupts suddenly. “Before you all joined me in there, I listened to a very interesting confession. From Grant’s assistant.”

Jiya could literally see Lucy’s eyes light up with hope. It's quit adorable, really. “Is that right?”

Flynn quickly summarizes Tomas’s guilty conscience and the man’s consideration of confessing Grant’s crimes, even if he’d be implicated. Lucy’s hopeful look turns feral, and Jiya feels a thrill of excitement shoot up her spine.

 _This_ is why she’s kept working with Lucy, despite the woman’s obvious spiraling. No other heist Jiya’s ever pulled on her own has given her the kind of adrenaline rush the way that this Robin Hood Crusade has. And yeah, sure, helping other people has turned out to be pretty addicting too. But in this case…

Jiya looks over at Flynn as Lucy spouts off a new plan involving stealing the statue in the middle of Mass tomorrow (which sounds just about par the course for this whole job, make an even bigger mess to cancel out the first one) and thinks that helping Flynn has made the job particularly sweet this time around. Much as she’s sure she throws him off-rhythm sometimes with her antics, he’s never treated her like she’s weird. Like she’s a freak. He just takes it in stride and, on occasion, gently nudges her away from her crazier antics if they’re causing conflict she’s unaware of.

(She would not admit this even if someone gave her all the money she asked for, but it’s nice having a father again. Even in this small way.)

The next day, during Mass, she has the honor of putting on her favorite rappelling equipment and popping down while everyone is praying (Cheng’s speech or talk or whatever wasn’t too bad, or, at least, the bits she was paying attention to) and lifting the statue away.

(Not the real one, obviously. That one was 900 pounds. They had to replace that one the previous night with one of Rufus’s spot-on replicas so this stunt could work.)

Cheng cuts off mid-prayer when he sees the statue is gone and Jiya bites back a giggle at the look on his face before making her next move. She climbs through the rafters and down the walls outside. Then, she stands suspiciously by the van where they hid the real St. Nick statue until Father Cheng comes outside, followed by his parishioners. Jiya hurries away to watch the show.

“There is no miracle!” Cheng announces. “Someone stole the statue!” He pulls open the back doors of the van and reveals the real St. Nick. “And the one who did it--”

“Andrew Grant!” Rufus yells. He stalks around the van, holding up the van registration papers.

Wyatt, posed in the crowd, shouts out in a disguised voice, “Hey, that’s the guy who bought the church, isn’t it?!”

“That,” Grant defends, “is NOT my van!”

Rufus waves the registration papers in Grant’s face. “Who fakes a miracle for a profit, huh? I may be an atheist, but even I know that’s low, you sick bastard!”

“Oh, c’mon, that priest is desperate!” Grant points at Cheng. “He stole the statue and faked the registration papers, it’s obvious! And besides,” he reaches back into the crowd and pulls Tomas forward, “my assistant was with me the whole time! Look, we bought this property and we’re going to fix up the neighborhood--”

“No!” Tomas straightens and looks Grant right in the eye. “He bought this land the same way he got the rest of the neighborhood, the same way he gets all of his property! Through bribery, and manipulation!” He pulls away when Grant tries to stop him from talking and points at him. “Andrew Grant sent a bunch of thugs to beat up Father Cheng!”

The crowd absolutely goes _berserk_ at that reveal, angrily muttering and shouting abuse at Grant. Jiya marvels at the poetic justice of it all right when the police cars pull up.

“That was fast,” Jiya comments to Lucy. “Anonymous tip?”

“Maybe,” Lucy confirms with a smirk.

“Dana!” Grant shouts as he’s lead away by officers. “Spin this, please! Instead of felony, maybe soften it to ‘controversy’!”

Lucy’s grin turns shameless and deadly. “Oh, but I thought that ‘controversy’ meant ‘attention’, Grant! I’m sure this’ll do wonders for your public image!”

“What?!” Wow, Jiya had no idea a man’s voice could go that high without a kick to the crotch. “Are you even BRITISH?!”

Lucy rolls her eyes and turns to Jiya. “Australian accents are _nothing_ like British ones, I mean, seriously?”

* * *

After all of the hullabaloo is done and over with, Flynn finds Cheng inside of the church, staring up at the cross.

“You broke the seal of the confessional,” Flynn points out. “Telling everyone the statue was a fake.”

“Yeah, well, looks like you’d planned for that, didn’t you?” Cheng retorts. He shakes his head. “I...I had to save the faith of my parish.”

“Wrong act, right reasons?” Flynn suggests.

Cheng chuckles. “I think I’ll take my blessed miracle and call it a day.”

“Fake miracle, remember?”

“Flynn.” Cheng turns to him, his eyes soft and understanding. “Five thieves saved my church. That’s the closest to a miracle I’ve ever experienced.” He puts a hand on Flynn’s shoulder. “My sermon next Sunday is about absolution. I’ll be expecting you.”

Flynn huffs. “I, uh...I’ll consider it.”

Cheng pulls him in for a brief hug. “I’ll see you again, I’m sure. I’ve got faith in you.”

The man leaves without another word. Flynn watches him until he leaves. Then he turns to the votive candles.

He hasn’t lit one since his mother passed away almost twelve years ago. Even then, it had been rote. Routine. He'd been so lost in grief, he'd barely noticed he'd done it until the small flame flickered at him.

_Lorena would appreciate the gesture._

The thought propels him forward. He lights a match, and sets one candle, then another, aflame. He doesn’t know if he still believes they do any good, if he ever did, but...

After a moment of deliberation, Lucy’s mourning eyes and her locket in his mind, he lights a third candle.

When he turns back, the team is watching him. Lucy has tears in her eyes.

He has no idea how to express his gratitude for their help. He hasn’t been with a team this long since his days fighting for the underdog in any war he could join. Even then, there was a tragically high turnover rate. 

They willingly jumped into this unorthodox mission without a second thought, and didn’t bow out, even when it got way more complicated than it should have. Flynn has no idea what to do with this knowledge. It wasn’t like their Lifeboat stint was supposed to go in a direction like this. 

He doesn’t have the words to properly thank them for saving the place that had been his sanctuary for so long, the place where he baptized his daughter, married his wife, had his mother’s funeral, then his family’s...so he just nods.

Luckily, that seems to be enough for them. Lucy touches his arm as he joins them, and then they all head for the entrance.

Flynn stops when Jiya goes to stand in front of St. Nicholas. “So what’s the big deal with this guy, anyway? Everyone kept fawning over him like he was Santa or something.”

“He’s not Santa,” Flynn informs her gently. “He’s…” For the first time in several days, he laughs. “He’s the patron saint of thieves, actually.”

“Really?” Jiya grins up at him, and the sight goes a long way to cheering him up. “Cool.”

She skips back to him, her braid bouncing up and down. Together, they catch up with Lucy, who’s waiting for them at the doorway. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll probably be doing NaNoWriMo next month, but no worries, this work will be part of that project! Anyway, this chapter gave me a REALLY hard time, so I hope you guys enjoyed it!


	8. Interlude: Dealer's Choice

Wyatt strolls into the Lifeboat offices one day to find Flynn and Jiya playing cards in the conference room. It takes him about thirty seconds of observing before he realizes--

“Are you guys playing Basra?”

Jiya nods without looking up from the deck.

“Well, we’re _trying_ to play a normal game of Basra,” Flynn grumbles, “but _someone_ keeps stealing cards.”

Rufus appears next to Wyatt. “What the hell is Basra?”

“I learned it during my tour in the Middle East,” Wyatt explains. “It’s a pretty popular game over there.”

“I haven’t played since I was a kid,” Jiya chimes in. There’s only a slightly somber tone to her voice to indicate that there’s more to that particular story. “So when Flynn asked if I knew how to play, I said yes and here we are.”

Flynn eyes Wyatt and Rufus out of the corner of his eye. “Once we finish this round, you both can join in. This is more fun with more people and works better with an even number of players. We could use a few non-cheating players.”

Jiya’s smile is absolutely unapologetic.

Wyatt can’t remember the last time he played Basra. He also can’t remember the last time he’s done anything casual like this with a group. It’s becoming a habit lately. He’s starting to loosen up around these guys and he doesn’t know how he feels about it. He’s not used to working on a team like this. He’s not used to having people around with a low mortality rate.

They play two rounds (Jiya wins the first one, Flynn wins the second) before Rufus stretches his arms. “I’mma grab some drinks.” He pauses. “There any vodka left?”

Despite his forced casual tone, they all clearly know what he’s asking. What he’s implying.

“I think there’s less than half a bottle left,” Flynn eventually answers.

That hangs heavily in the air. Jiya takes advantage of the distraction and starts shuffling the deck just before Wyatt pulls the cards from her hands.

“We should say something,” Wyatt declares. “It’s a problem, and we know it is.”

Rufus scoffs. “Yeah, good luck with that.”

“I’d rather not wait until Lucy goes overboard on a job before I point it out. If she screws up, it’s not just on her, it’s on all of us--”

“You don’t consider what we’ve already done ‘overboard’?” Jiya clicks her tongue and takes the deck back. “Then why don’t you bring it up?”

“What, just me?” Wyatt looks at Rufus and Jiya. “Am I the only one concerned here?”

“Of course not,” Rufus reassures. “But you know how Lucy is--”

“Do we?” Wyatt grabs the deck away from Jiya again and sets it aside. “We knew her, somewhat, before we started this.”

“Exactly.” Rufus leans back and pinches the bridge of his nose. “If we don’t go about this right, who knows how she’ll react now? Until we know how to approach the issue, there’s not much we can do.” 

Wyatt throws his hands up and finally addresses Flynn. “Why aren’t _you_ saying anything? I thought you’d be on board with this?”

Flynn purses his lips. “Of course I am. But Rufus is right. We need to slow play this.”

“We may not have time to slow play it!”

“Slow play what?”

The four of them collectively jump at the sudden sight of Lucy in the doorway. She crosses her arms. The sharp scent of alcohol tinges the air.

“The game,” Flynn says coolly. “Wyatt keeps throwing down the wrong cards because he’s not thinking far enough ahead.”

“It’s a strategy-based game, not a speed one,” Jiya tacks on.

Rufus clears his throat. “Yeah. I mean, I’m still getting used to using jack cards like this.

Lucy’s red-eyed gaze flickers between all of them. Her shirt is half-untucked from her wide-legged orange pants. “We’ve got another job. Meet back here in fifteen minutes.”

After she turns and walks away, they let out a collective sigh.

Wyatt shakes his head. “Wonder what it is this time.”

“So long as we stay in the States this time, I’ll do whatever the hell is coming up,” Rufus grumbles. 

“I’ll remind you that you said that if this job takes us to Alabama.”

“Wyatt, don’t even joke about that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies that this has taken so long. These past few months have been rough, and my inspiration has been touch and go. I've got a rough idea for the next chapter, so it shouldn't take as long to write, but updates won't be consistent. Thank you for your understanding!


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